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India-Pakistan
Tablighi Jamaat convention hits town
2007-11-20
The New York Times plays softball with yet another jihadi recruitment organization.
For six days they came: hundreds of thousands of turbans Pakistani men squashed onto a barren rice field, dressed in baggy trousers, crocheted caps on their heads, sandals on their feet and long beards a common feature. They prayed five times a day, listened to preachers, ate by the flicker of oil lamps and slept with each other, cheek by jowl, on the hard ground.

By Sunday night, the annual convention of the Pakistan-based group Tabligh Jamaat, the largest gathering of Muslims outside Mecca, had come to an end without incident. That, in itself, was remarkable this year: amid the current political crisis, the government had banned all large gatherings and had broken up several others by force.

It was also remarkable because the group, though it publicizes a benign strain of revivalist Islam and is held in wide esteem in many parts of the world, is suspected by Western intelligence agencies to be a recruiting ground for jihadists. The agencies say that among those who have passed through the group were three Western men who have been convicted on terrorism-related charges: John Walker Lindh, Richard Reid and Jose Padilla.
Posted by:Fred

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