New documents show Al Qaeda pays Afghanistan recruits in Pakistani rupees, and they break down the salaries (via Daily Show):
Military officials… read a document known as the “al Qaeda employment contract…” It was seized after 9/11 in the home of an al Qaeda operative in Kandahar, Afghanistan…Monthly salaries are spelled out, 6,500 Pakistani rupees… if you’re married, 1,000 rupees… for bachelors. An extra 700 rupees per wife if you have more than one…
Married members get seven days of vacation every three weeks. Bachelors get five vacation days every month… they also get 15 days sick leave a year. [Link]
A draft of al-Qaeda “bylaws” stipulates extra pay of 700 rupees a month for each additional wife as well as 20,000 rupees for married members to buy furniture and free health care. [Link]
The Pakistani rupee currently trades at 60 to the dollar, so it’s apparently cheaper to hire a terrorist than a second-tier software developer. Given the relative skill sets, I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. And bachelors get screwed on pay — I wonder why they’re incentivizing men to get married even though they’re likely to die.
Jon Stewart jokes that the vacations are fantastic, but the pension’s non-existent. Personally I’ll never say any software ‘bombed’ again.
Simple. The number one rule of any guerilla movement: Be fruitful and multiply so we will always have new soldiers. Remember, no sex before marriage. 🙂
i can thankfully only admit of hearsay or reading of the familial practices among guerillas like these – uganda and sri lanka – and the practice of discouraging companionship of any sort… so on the surface it would seem contrary to the plan from the master terrorist… but then it just chills me to think these guys actually believe they are doing the right thing for their family… their spouses are proud of what they do and endorse their activities… their kids are brought up to regard their dads as heroes… comes back to the fundamental definition of a terrorist… in whose eyes?
This is pure discrimination.
wonder how much they pay for a software jihadi
somewhat unrelated – but something i thought folks here would be interested in.
Please look at the bank note above and observe the arabic version of the number ’20’ on the top right below the ‘C1263636′. Compare it to the larger ’20’ on the bottom right?
The similarity is not coincidental. I came across this in Georges Ifrah’s ‘History of numbers’ (I quote name and title from memory… so might be off slightly).
When the arab traders came to the hindustan, they were intrigued by the number system. They took the symbols back. However, a key difference in the representation was that the arabic script is written in a different direction from the hindic text. So, while they copied the symbols, the arabic representation is at a 90 degree turn from the hindic originals. I tested this by asking a Palestinian bro’ to write out numbers in arabic text and compared it with the indian version (different from the numbers on your key board). Is very true. You will notice the same in the numbers above.
Pardon the meandering. I thought some of you might enjoy the little diversion.
I query with utmost sincerity. Any one agree that Pakistan has a decided “comparative advantage” in producing terrorists/jehadis/nutcases.
so dhavak do you know the 786 quaran and om story.