The Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary, near Nowshera in KPK Pakistan , has turned out a long list of students turned Taliban leaders — including many now on the hardline group’s negotiating team holding talks with the Kabul government to end a 20-year war. “Russia was broken into pieces by the students and graduates of Darul Uloom Haqqania and America was also sent packing,” beams Maulana Yousaf Shah, an influential cleric at the seminary that critics have dubbed the ‘university of jihad’. The sprawling campus in Akora Khattak Pakistan is home to roughly 4,000 students who are fed, clothed and educated for free. It has sat at the crossroads of regional militant violence for years, educating many Pakistanis and Afghan refugees — some of whom returned home to wage war against the Russians and Americans or preach jihad. Despite its infamy in some quarters, it has enjoyed state support in Pakistan, where mainstream political parties are heavily boosted by links with religious factions. Afghan leaders argue that Pakistan’s approval for the madressahs is proof that it backs the Taliban.
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