I think the 'intelligentsia' generally regard as educated those who have a certain kind of knowledge, namely abstract knowledge (if it can be called that) that they consider themselves specialists in

True there is a general bias against practical knowledge among the "intelligentsia" that (to an extent) crosses political boundaries. But I was also thinking in terms of members of the "intelligentsia" being part of the Taliban. I know these groups are all different, but certainly ISIS and Al Qaeda for example had degreed engineers that developed weapons and communications infrastructure. ISIS used to have its own digital magazine whose production value rivaled commercial publications in the West; that requires all number of skills. The Taliban would be the outlier if they didn't have those sorts of people somewhere in their organization, especially given their success.

I don't think the left specifically likes thinking about that, because it implies people are being trained in their worldview (by way of a university education) and rejecting it.