KARACHI: Trying to lure him into the militant Islamic State (IS) group, the would-be recruiter told journalist Hasan Abdullah, "Brother, you could be such an asset to the Ummah"— the Islamic community. Abdullah replied that he was enjoying life and had no plans to join the militants.

"The enjoyment of this life is short-lived. You should work for the Akhira" — the afterlife, the recruiter pressed.

IS had its eye on Abdullah not because he adheres to any extremist ideology but because, as a journalist, the group believed he could be a boon to its propaganda machine, Abdullah told The Associated Press, recounting his meeting with the recruiter.

His encounter was a sign of how the IS is looking for sophisticated skills as it builds its foothold in new territory: Pakistan.

Sindh Counter-Terrorism Department head Raja Umer Khattab warns that IS has great potential to grow in Pakistan.

IS first announced its presence in the country with an attack on a bus carrying members of the Ismaili community Karachi's Safoora Goth in May 2015.

Read: 43 killed in attack on bus carrying Ismailis in Karachi

The gunmen ordered passengers to bow their heads, then opened fire, killing 45. The gunmen left behind a tattered piece of paper announcing their arrival in Pakistan.

The number of IS loyalists in Pakistan is not known. Government officials only recently admitted that they have a presence and insist loyalists here have no known operational links to IS leadership in Iraq and Syria.

Still, in one of the first warnings by an official about IS, Director General of the Intelligence Bureau Aftab Sultan told a Senate committee earlier this month that hundreds of Pakistanis have gone to fight in Syria, and some are now coming home to Pakistan to recruit.

Know more: IS emerging as a threat, warns IB chief

One way IS militants are trying to recruit and build is through women. One academy for women in Karachi’s Baloch Colony neighbourhood recruited women by playing IS videos in classrooms, Khitab told the AP.

The 20 female students then reached out to middle-class and wealthy Karachi women, urging them to donate money in the name of religion to the IS cause of establishing a caliphate.

Several women were detained, including the wife of a suspected IS operative, and were released after questioning, Khitab said.

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IS recruiters have been stalking university campuses. For example, the suspected mastermind in the Safoora attack, Saad Aziz, was a graduate of the Institute of Business Administration in Karachi.

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A professor at the Institute, Huma Baqai, said there are radicalised professors teaching in some of the country’s top universities. They "are using the classrooms to mold (students’) minds," she said. "There is no scrutiny in what happens in the classroom."

An intelligence official told the AP that security officials have interrogated several university professors suspected of supporting IS and trying to recruit students.

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"Finding people who are willing to strap on a suicide vest and blow themselves up is easy. There are hundreds, thousands," said Abdullah, the journalist. But the educated are a bigger prize.

He said he knows two other journalists whom IS tried to enlist. Abdullah said IS probably sought him because he was known from his work writing on extremism in the region and has met many militants personally.

Abdullah said his courtship by IS began when he received a message on social media from someone offering information for him for a story. Abdullah didn’t hear from him again until weeks later, when a man using the same name approached Abdullah as he had lunch in a park outside his office.

The man told Abdullah he closely followed his writings — then said he was from IS. Abdullah quizzed him about militants he knew to verify his claims. Near the end of the conversation, the man noted that many professionals were joining IS.

"This was basically his invitation to me to join their rank," Abdullah said. And the man made his pitch.

Read: Agencies hunt brothers ‘recruiting for IS’ in Islamabad

Professionals can hold leadership posts or be involved in the group’s prolific and powerful propaganda machine, which includes sophisticated videos produced with the latest technology and vigorous use of social media. Al Qaeda in particular is pursuing a similar caliber of recruits.

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Khattab said it isn’t clear who is winning the competition but there are known instances of Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan crossing over to IS. Most notably, Khattab said, Al Qaeda operatives Abdullah Yusuf and Tayyab Minhas defected to IS and are believed to have orchestrated much of the group’s violence in Karachi.

The past stereotype of a militant as a tribesman from the mountains in traditional garb with bandoliers of ammo slung over his shoulder has been replaced, said analyst Bruce Hoffman, director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University in Washington.

The new generation comes from "well-educated, cosmopolitan, university-educated Pakistanis from middle-class backgrounds who can navigate our globalised space whether virtually or physically with facility and confidence." They can use social media, cross borders and fit "seamlessly into global societies."

"They are the new force multipliers of terrorist groups," he said.

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It is courting university students, doctors, lawyers, journalists and businessmen, and using women groups for fundraising.

It is also wading into fierce competition with the country’s numerous other militant groups, particularly the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda in the Subcontinent, the new branch created by the veteran terror network.

Here in Karachi, IS loyalists have set up their strongest presence, carrying out multiple attacks in the past year and setting up networks.

The metropolis has always been a favourite place for militants to operate. Wealthy districts running on the city’s profitable commerce hold potential for fundraising, while the crowded, cramped poorer districts that have spread around the city provide recruits and places to hide.