ISLAMABAD, Jan 18: An international think-tank has said President Gen Pervez Musharraf's promise to drive extremism away from madressahs remains unfulfilled.

"Today, two years after he promised his sweeping reforms, the jihadi madressahs remain the key breeding ground for radical Islamist ideology and the recruitment centre for terrorist jihadi networks," says the International Crisis Group (ICG).

The ICG in its latest report, "Unfulfilled Promises: Pakistan's Failure to Tackle Extremism", states that the failure to curb rising extremism in Pakistan stems directly from the military government's own unwillingness to act against its political allies among the religious groups.

"Having co-opted the religious parties to gain constitutional cover for his military rule, Mr Musharraf is highly reliant on the religious right for his regime's survival," says Samina Ahmed, ICG's South Asia project director.

The ICG referred that in January 2002, Gen Musharraf publicly promised a list of measures to tackle extremism, including bringing the madressahs into the mainstream. The government pledged to register all madressahs so that they adopt a government-approved curriculum by the end of 2002, and to stop their misuse for preaching political and religious intolerance.

The international community welcomed President Musharraf's promise to stem jihadi ideology, but two years on, the lack of results is clear. To date, no presidential ordinance to regulate the madressahs has been promulgated; in fact, the government openly assures the religious leaders that it will not interfere in the madressahs' affairs. Most madressahs in Pakistan remain unregistered and their sources of funding remain unregulated.

The pledge to have government-prescribed curricula at all madressahs similarly remains unfulfilled; no national curriculum has been developed. Three "model madressahs" teaching government-approved course work have been established, but together these three schools have only about 300 students, while 1.5 million students attend unregulated madressahs.

Most critically, religious extremists continue to use madressahs and mosques to propagate their extremist Islamic agenda, including their anti-American and pro-Taliban campaign, the ICG says.

Pakistan's failure to close madressahs and to crack down on jihadi networks has resulted in a resurgence of domestic extremism and sectarian violence, including two assassination attempts against Musharraf himself in December 2003. It says the government inaction continues to pose a threat to domestic, regional and international security.

"Mr Musharraf's priority has never been eradicating Islamic extremism but rather the legitimisation and consolidation of his military rule," says Robert Templer, director of Asia programme at the ICG. "For that, he depends on the religious right. If the US and others continue to restrict their pressure on Musharraf to verbal warnings, the rise of extremism in Pakistan will continue unchecked," the report concludes.