The Failure of Jihadist Rehabilitation
The Saudi Model Returns Jihadists to the Front
The Saudi Interior Ministry released a list of 85 terrorist suspects Tuesday February 3, 2009 that included 11 graduates from its widely acclaimed jihadist rehabilitation program. The Saudi Government had boasted in the previous year that none of its program’s graduates had returned to violence, and it has been marketed as a model for countries searching for a solution to their detainee problem. It was reported on February 14, 2009 that the Obama administration’s review of the 242 remaining terrorist suspects held at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay had begun. However, the recent revelations of the failure of the rehabilitation model may severely limit the administration’s options for handling the detainees, and human rights groups have expressed fear that the Obama administration may exercise its power to retain elements of the controversial administrative detention, and military commission systems. (1)
The Saudi government has pioneered a “soft” approach for combating terror as part of its widespread counterterrorism campaign launched in 2004. The Saudi strategy has been coined the PRAC strategy, due to its focus on prevention, rehabilitation, and aftercare, and the Saudi Interior Ministry operates hundreds of government-sponsored programs as part of its 3-tierd approach to countering Islamic extremism. Through intensive counseling, religious re-education, and assistance with reintegrating into society the PRAC strategy is geared towards undermining the ideological root of the militant organizations that have launched a global jihad. (2) It is one of the most comprehensive strategies proposed to engage in the “war of ideas”, an often-ignored front in the war on terror.
The Care Rehabilitation Center outside of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, one of five “half-way houses”, or rehab compounds operated by the Saudi government, has received widespread media publicity, and become a symbol for the Saudi government’s PRAC initiative. Sheikh Ahmed Hamid Jelan, a member of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, and the Director of Care Rehabilitation, offers a class on understanding jihad that attempts to counteract the definition of Jihad adopted by Islamic extremists through scriptures in the Quran. The center also offers intensive counseling, art therapy, and social activities over a period of a couple months to ex-jihadists. Program graduates then receive public assistance in reintegrating into society, which includes an estimated monthly stipend of $700. (3)
Egypt and Yemen have established jihadist rehab programs based on the Saudi model, and the Yemeni government has lobbied the U.S. to transfer its Yemeni detainees at Camp Delta to their rehab program. At a security conference in January 2009 Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh announced that 94 Yemeni detainees held at Guantanamo would be returned to Yemen to pass through the recently created Yemeni reintegration program, which involves government stipends to the ex-jihadists. (4) The prospect of returning the detainees to Yemen, however, has been complicated by the release of a video on an al-Queda website encouraging jihadists to travel to Yemen, due to the merger of the jihadists and their Yemeni hosts. The two Saudis appearing in the video were released from Guantanamo, and graduated from the Saudi rehabilitation program. (5)
(1) “Review of Guantanamo Detainees Begins” by Julian E. Barnes. LA Times. February 14, 2009.
(3) “Deprogramming Jihadists” by Katherine Zoepf. New York Times Magazine. 11/7/08
(4) “Anywhere but Yemen” by Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn. The Weekly Standard. 2/9/09
(5) “A nice safe haven for jihadists”. The Economist. 1/29/09
Jihad Is Over If You Want It
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