DAR AL HARB/ISLAM-THE WEST/AFGHANISTAN: YOOOO DHIMMIS, GIVE US SOME JIZYA FOR MADRASSAS

Afghan President Karzai seeks international help building madrassas, or Islamic schools
AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Afghanistan needs more international help to build Islamic schools so fewer students will attend more radical ones outside the country, President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday.

Karzai said parents would not know what their children study in Islamic schools or madrassas outside the country - an apparent reference to neighboring Pakistan, with whom relations have been prickly.

''I wish all international communities, especially Islamic countries, would help us in constructing madrassas,'' Karzai said at an education conference in the capital, Kabul. He did not specify any countries.

''Our students should be inside our country under the control of our religious scholars and clerics,'' he said.

Education Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said Afghanistan is building a ''modern system of madrassas'' offering a broad-based Islamic education.

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1) Afghan President Karzai seeks international help building madrassas, or Islamic schools