Pakistan faces militants' threat from elite classes: Dawn newspaper

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is facing new threats with radicalised youth of educated middle and upper middle class joining the ranks of militants, an article in a leading Pakistani daily said today.

The trend has been found after security forces busted a militants ring and arrested four men involved in the recent attack at a bus that killed 45 minority Shia Ismaili Muslims in Karachi and the killing of rights activist Sabeen Mahmud.

According to an article in the Dawn newspaper, the four men involved "Tahir, Saad, Azfar and Nasir" are part of educated militants who have been active in Pakistan.

"The confessions made by these detainees shocked many, particularly those who believed that terrorists exist only in the lower classes and in unusual circumstances," it said.

But the paper says that it was not a new phenomenon, as there is a long list of high profile terrorists hailing from educated middle-classes in Pakistan.

It said that Daniel Pearl murderer Omar Saeed Sheikh, Al Qaeda IT expert Naeem Noor Khan, Al Qaeda operative Dr Arshad Waheed, Time Square bombing planner Faisal Shahzad, Danish embassy bombing culprit Hamad Adil, and hijacker of a navy frigate at Karachi dockyard Owais Jakhrani were also well-educated and belonged to well-to-do families.

"While the presence of extremist tendencies in upper- middle and elite-classes is not new, in recent years however, the number of militants hailing from these classes has grown," it said.

The daily said the Muslim diaspora communities in the west are quite familiar with this phenomenon of emerging extremist tendencies.