Terror tech in Pakistan

Houston Chronicle:

It's a nightmare scenario that awakens some U.S. intelligence officials at night: Pakistani-American youths will enter the country to carry out terrorist attacks after spending time at radical religious schools and al-Qaida training camps in Pakistan.

Officials say it hasn't happened, and some experts warn against labeling all young Americans who study in Pakistan as potential terrorists.

But the high-profile return home of two U.S.-born Pakistani-American teenagers last week who spent four years at a radical Islamic madrassa in Karachi has focused fresh attention on the potential threat, even though the brothers have no known ties to terrorism.

Their saga stirred concern among some members of Texas' congressional delegation, prompting a call for congressional hearings and a request by 10 Republican members of the House for Pakistan to deport the estimated 700 Americans studying at the madrassas.

"From al-Qaida's standpoint, Pakistanis with American nationality are very attractive targets to recruit," says Bruce Riedel, a former career intelligence officer whose assignments included responsibility for South Asia. "They would have American passports that mean when they get to Dulles International Airport (outside Washington, D.C.) or George Bush International Airport (in Houston), they just sail right through."

Robert Heibel, a former FBI deputy director of counterterrorism, says the "antennae of the FBI have gone up" in response to Pakistani-Americans returning from training at religious schools in Pakistan where they might be exposed to al-Qaida recruiters.

"The FBI would be very interested in all of these people when they return," Heibel said. "I wouldn't be surprised to see the bureau do some mass interviews."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said al-Qaida and other extremist groups try to recruit "non-traditional (Muslims), who look more Western."

He added, "It is going on."

The comments followed the return of the two teenage Pakistani-American brothers to Atlanta on Thursday, six days after a personal appeal to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf by Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, during a congressional delegation visit to Islamabad.

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I am not sure how McCaul got the label R-Austin since his district stretches along Highway 290 and runs from parts of Katy west of Houston all the way up to Austin and manages to also include Washington County. Perhaps it is just the rarity of seeing a Republican from Austin.

McCaul did grasp the problem with sending young Americans to the terror technical institutes known as madrassas. While some may see places that require the memorization of the ancient text of the Koran as benign, the fact is that in many cases the students are being turned into human ordnance to go out and explode in an act of mass murder for Allah.

The Strata-Sphere has more on the Pakistani terror universities.