KARZAI: ABOLISH ISLAMIC SCHOOLS

Abolish Islamic schools that teach hatred: Karzai

MONTREAL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday urged the international community to put an end to Islamic schools that teach hatred and produce suicide bombers.

Madrassas, or Islamic schools, are "teaching hatred rather than religion, teaching that some people we must hate, that some people we must destroy," Karzai said at a public luncheon in Montreal.

The Afghan president said it "will take a lot of sacrifice from Afghans, and from the rest of the world to get rid of those places who in the name of madrassas, in the name of religious schools, are teaching hatred to young people and sending them against us, who are actually training suicide bombers against us."

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In an interview published Saturday in the national Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail, Karzai said that Pakistan, Afghanistan's neighbor, must find the political will to eliminate its breeding grounds of terrorism if Afghanistan is to know peace.

Karzai said the Pakistani military must take action and other countries need to pressure them to do so, the newspaper said.

"We have to talk to Pakistan and we have to convince them that it is not in their interest, that it is going to hurt all of us eventually," he was quoted as saying.

Karzai, who attended this week's United Nations General Assembly in New York, is to meet with U.S. President George W Bush at the White House next Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Karzai, Bush and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf are to hold three-way talks on the U.S.-led fight against terrorism.


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1) Abolish Islamic schools that teach hatred: Karzai