Bangladesh's Home Minister said the attackers who terrorised Dhaka and killed 22 people were all highly educated young men who went to university and none were from a madarsa.
So...no. the standard arguments made to justify radicalisation don't apply here. The attackers were not from poor, destitute backgrounds forced to take up arms and they weren't “uneducated”, making them somehow easier to brainwash.
They were from stable economic backgrounds and university educated. And NO, this isn't a new phenomenon.
- Al Qaeda's chief, Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the masterminds of 9/11, is a trained surgeon.
- Arif Majeed, the 23-year-old from Navi Mumbai who fought for ISIS in Iraq and Syria was a civil engineering student.
- Fahad Shaikh, another Indian who went to fight for ISIS, was a mechanical engineering graduate and his father, a doctor.
- Mehdi Mansoor Biswas, arrested from Bangalore for running a pro-ISIS Twitter account, is a computer engineer.
This year, personnel files of some ISIS fighters were leaked and one of the most significant details of the 4000 fighters from 71 countries was their level of education. Only 17% of them stopped their education after elementary or middle school and a quarter attended college.
Some even have PhDs, masters and MBAs. Looks like governments world over need to approach radicalisation differently now. Poverty and lack of education just don't cut it as excuses anymore.
And no, this isn't leave to assume that it's any religion at the root of this. Terrorism is always political. No religion encourages violence. Dhaka, Baghdad, 26/11, 9/11, Brussels, Paris, Istanbul – those who suffer and those who mourn span all age groups, genders, religions and regions.
Video Editor: Sashant Kumar
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