The involvement of several medical doctors in the recent bust of terror modules in several states and the blast at the Red Fort in New Delhi on November 10, killing at least 13 innocent people, has brought to the fore a complex issue—the growing threat of medical doctors becoming jihadis.

Medical doctors turning into jihadi terrorists isn’t a new phenomenon. Osama bin Laden’s successor, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri; George Habash, founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Fathi Shikaki, founder of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad; and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, the deceased Hamas leader, were all medical doctors.

In 2007, when Western agencies busted the “Physicians Plot" to bomb London and Glasgow airport, several physicians and medical professionals were arrested. It included the Iraq-born Dr. Bilal Abdullah, who was arrested trying to blow up a jeep packed with gas cylinders at Glasgow airport. This has an eerie similarity to the Red Fort blast, where a doctor was blown up in a moving car laden with explosive material, as initial investigations have revealed. Incidentally, an Indian PhD student, Kafeel Ahmed, died from the burns he suffered in an attempt to carry out the Glasgow airport attack.

These incidents triggered a debate in the West about the role of medical doctors in jihadi terror groups. In a 2008 essay, Stephen Schwartz probed this complex relationship between Islamic extremism and the role of doctors. The essay,........

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