Several families in Kandahar informed Afghanistan International that in a number of religious schools in this province children are being taught "Jihadi education" in Urdu language.
They claimed that a madrassa called “Talim ul-Islam”, belonging to an adviser of the Taliban leader, is one of them.
The videos and pictures forwarded by these families to the Pashto section of Afghanistan International indicate that the children attending this madrassa range from eight to 14 years of age.
Afghanistan International's findings show that Talim ul-Islam madrassa has been active in Kandahar for the past 17 years and started teaching in Urdu following the takeover of power by the Taliban.
Mohammad Omar Khattabi, the head of this madrassa, has other madrassas in Uruzgan and Helmand provinces, where hundreds of children are engaged in religious education.
Afghanistan International has acquired videos in which a mullah from Tailm ul-Islam madrassa imparts teachings to students about Jihad, non-Muslim countries, and urges them to engage in a fight against these nations.
He suggests that in the event of losses from non-Islamic countries, they should undertake “practical jihad”.
With the seizure of power in Afghanistan, the proliferation of such madrassas has remarkably increased, particularly in the southern region—the historical stronghold of the Taliban. According to statistics from the Taliban’s Ministry of Education, there are currently nearly 20,000 madrassas and religious centres in Afghanistan, predominantly operated by the Taliban and their supporters.
Sources in Kandahar said that a number of high-ranking officials of the Taliban in this province, including Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs; Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the chief justice of the group and Mullah Fazil, the deputy of the Ministry of Defence of the Taliban, have started to establish new madrassas to expand and consolidate their influence.
