Posted on 04/26/2006 10:54:43 PM PDT by LibWhacker
British security chiefs are studying a novel Saudi approach to combating terror - using clerics to debate "jihad" with jailed militants and convert them to more moderate beliefs.
Seeking to fight Islamic extremism with Islamic theologians, the Saudi authorities say they successfully re-educated some 400 out of 700 extremists and released them from prison.
The Islamic "counselling" programme is part of what British experts regard as Saudi Arabia's "model counter-terrorism campaign".
Senior officials, including the MI5 chief, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, have visited the kingdom to devise a similar "counter-radicalisation" strategy for Britain.
Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries where the fight against terrorism has yielded real success with a softer approach.
Al-Qa'eda's campaign in Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden's birthplace, started spectacularly with suicide bombings against western compounds in Riyadh three years ago but has now abated.
Saudi security forces say they have killed or captured 25 out of 26 people on their original 2003 list of "most wanted" terrorists, including successive local leaders of al-Qa'eda.
Similarly, only four people on a follow-up list of 36 wanted militants are believed to be still at large in the kingdom. The rest have been killed, captured or fled, mainly to Iraq.
"Every day their numbers and capability and resources are less and less," said Gen Mansour al-Turki, spokesman for the Saudi ministry of interior, "We feel that terrorism in Saudi Arabia has been degraded.
"We are helped by the fact that our response to attacks is very fast. Every cell that carries out a terrorist attack does not get to plan another."
The government has sacked about 1,000 hardline clerics, prevented Saudis from going to fight in Iraq and invested heavily in technology, such as a new control room for security forces in Riyadh.
Now more than 100 Muslim clerics, psychiatrists and psychologists are involved in counselling inmates around the country.
This is offered only to militants who have not been directly involved in terrorist acts but are believed to sympathise with or provide support to extremists.
After a psychological assessment, they have one-on-one sessions with clerics to debate radical ideology - including the meaning of "jihad" or "holy war" and the doctrine of "takfir" - declaring Muslims who disagree with them to be infidels.
Prisoners in the programme are given more access to their family, who sometimes have transport and accommodation paid for by the government.
If deemed suitable for release, they are then offered more help, for instance in finding work.
"These people are very isolated in their cells. They are encouraged not to deal with anybody outside the cells. That is how their minds are controlled," said Gen al-Turki.
"When they are arrested, we give them a chance to think for themselves, and most of them realise they had chosen the wrong path."
Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi security adviser, said: "None of those who have been released are known to have gone back to terrorism.
"These young men are up against people who have years of experience in religious theology. They sit with the Koran and go through each of the verses. I have met two or three of them and very much doubt they will go back to terrorism."
Government-sponsored Saudi clerics have also taken on the jihadi ideologists on the internet.
These "soft" tactics have impressed British experts. "The Saudis are doing a great deal to deal with terrorism and the cause of terrorism," said Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, during a visit to Riyadh last week.
But an attempt by suicide bombers last February to blow up the oil processing plant in Abqaiq - the world's largest - was only narrowly averted when guards opened fire on explosive-laden cars that tried to ram the gates.
Saudi officials are deeply worried about the impact of the insurgency in Iraq. So far the attacks in Saudi Arabia have been led by veterans of the wars in Afghanistan. That could change.
Gen al-Turki said most Saudis who go to Iraq, estimated to be in their hundreds, go on a "one-way trip to death" as suicide bombers.
I musta missed the gentle way in this story. If Bush tried to do all this stuff Arlen would have a heart attack.
The imans are the preachers of hate. WTF!? Shoot them.
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