Word: qasab
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...Banality of Terror It would be convenient to think of Qasab as a psychopath, exploited by cynical handlers who corrupt young men in the name of religion. In fact, his origins are ordinary. In his confession, Qasab, now 21, says he was born in the village of Faridkot, in Pakistan's Punjab province. He is said to have been a typical teenager, not especially religious, albeit with a reputation as a troublemaker. His family is poor - his father sells fried snacks at a bus station - but owns its own house. Qasab attended the local primary school; at 13, he left...
...Qasab's is the classic profile of a jihadi, according to Pakistani psychologist Sohail Abbas. In 2002, Abbas interviewed 517 men who had been jailed for going to fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Unlike the stereotypical image of a terrorist - illiterate, fanatic and trained in madrasahs, or religious seminaries - the men had relatively high levels of literacy and were more likely to have been educated in government schools than in madrasahs. Religion wasn't necessarily the only reason they turned to jihad. A Pakistani who enrolled in a training camp in Kunar province, Afghanistan, told TIME that he went...
...fertile farmland. There is even BlackBerry service. But it is, undeniably, the sort of place that fosters frustration. Feudal landlords own the farmland, and villagers feel trapped by the status they are born into. The good life is tantalizingly close, yet for most residents still unattainable. For men like Qasab, one of the best ways out is jihad. "In a developing country, youngsters who are sensitive, concerned, they talk about 'How do we change what is going on here? How do we get rid of corruption?'" says Abbas. "And if in some sense you find that jihad can help...
District governor Ghulam Mustafa (who denies that Qasab is from Faridkot) says the area has a long history of sending men to fight in Kashmir. Despite the risks, joining a militant network provides social mobility that is virtually unattainable in Pakistani society, giving the groups' members a sense of purpose and pride and elevating their status, says Muhammad Amir Rana, a Pakistani expert on extremist groups. And indeed, villagers have told journalists that when Qasab went home to see his family just before the Mumbai attacks, he was a changed man - calm, with a sense of purpose and able...
These days, his neighbors have stopped telling stories about Qasab, and journalists are no longer welcome. But before they were excluded from the village, a correspondent from the English-language daily Dawn was able to interview a man who said he was Qasab's father. "I was in denial for the first couple of days, saying to myself it could not have been my son," Amir Qasab told Dawn. "Now I have accepted it." A few years back, said Amir Qasab, he and his son had a quarrel while he was home visiting. "He had asked me for new clothes...