Saudi turns his back on jihad

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - The last time Ahmed al-Shayea was in the news, he was in the hospital at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, being treated for severe burns from the truck bomb he had driven into the Iraqi capital on Christmas Day, 2004.

Today, he says, he has changed his mind about waging jihad, or holy war, and wants other young Muslims to know it. He wants them to see his disfigured face and fingerless hands, to hear how he was tricked into driving the truck on a fatal mission, to believe his contrition over having put his family through the agony of believing he was dead.

At 22, the new Ahmed Al-Shayea is the product of a concerted Saudi government effort to counter the ideology that nurtured the 9/11 hijackers and that has lured Saudis in droves to the Iraq insurgency. The deprogramming, similar to efforts carried out in Egypt and Yemen, is built on reason, enticements and lengthy talks with psychiatrists, Muslim clerics and sociologists.

The kingdom still has a way to go in cracking the jihadist mind-set. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and Saudis make up nearly half of the foreign detainees held in Iraq, according to Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser. They number hundreds, he said this month following a visit to Saudi Arabia. Dozens more are fighting alongside al-Qaida-inspired militants at a Palestinian camp in Lebanon.

Several hundred prisoners, as well as returnees from Guantanamo, are thought to have passed through the rehabilitation program.

Al-Shayea says his change of heart began when he was visited by a cleric at al-Ha'ir Prison in Riyadh following his repatriation from Iraq.

He says he put two questions to the cleric: Was the jihad for which he traveled to Iraq religiously sanctioned? And were the edicts inciting such action correct in saying the militants should not inform their parents or government of their intentions?

"I realized that all along I was wrong," al-Shayea told The Associated Press in a two-hour interview at a Riyadh hotel before returning to an Interior Ministry compound that serves as a sort of halfway house for ex-jihadists rejoining Saudi society.

Saudi Arabia's campaign against terrorism began in earnest after al-Qaida-linked militants struck three residential expatriate compounds in Riyadh in May 2003, killing 26 people.

The government says it cracked down on charities suspected of using donations to finance terrorism, banned mosques from holding unlicensed religious sessions and warned preachers against inciting youths to jihad. Officials as well as the government-guided media began to clearly and unequivocally refer to suicide bombings as terrorism.

The Interior Ministry sponsored programs on government-run TV stations showing repentant jihadists warning youths against joining al-Qaida and clergymen trying to correct misconceptions about jihad and dealing with non-Muslims. Al-Shayea has appeared on Al-Majd, a Saudi religious TV channel.

"The aim is to reform the youths, to listen to them and talk to them," said Ahmed Jailan, one of the clerics. "We also try to instill a sense of hope in them by telling them they still have the chance to make up for what they lost if they follow true Islam."

The prisoners later appear before a panel of judges who decide whether they can move from prison to the Interior Ministry compound, where activities include reading, civic and religious courses, sports and family visits. They get help finding jobs and wives, and after release they get free medical care, monthly stipends and sometimes cars.

At the time he was first approached to join the insurgency, al-Shayea was already becoming a devout Muslim in his ultraconservative town of Buraida. He grew a beard, prayed five times a day and stopped listening to Arabic love songs he used to enjoy. He was 19 and jobless.

"My friend started telling me about Iraq, how Muslims are getting killed there and how we should go there for jihad," said al-Shayea. "He told me there were fatwas (edicts) and DVDs issued by Saudi and Iraqi clergymen that called for jihad."

"We didn't think of jihad as something that would lead to our death. It was a fight against occupiers," said al-Shayea.

Finally the friend told him he was going to Iraq, and invited al-Shayea to join him.

He was told to shave his beard and pack Western clothes to avoid looking like a would-be jihadist. He got a passport and an airline ticket to Syria. And he managed to save $1,600 — travel fees, he was told, that would go to smugglers, weapons training and al-Qaida's coffers.

On a cool November night toward the end of the holy month of Ramadan, he donned a black T-shirt and jeans and told his parents he was going camping in the desert with his friends.

He and his friend flew to Syria, a favored transit point for Iraq-bound fighters because Syria doesn't ask visiting Arabs for visas, and its 360-mile border with Iraq is thinly policed. A network of al-Qaida operatives sheltered him in Damascus, Aleppo and the border town of Abu-Kamal, and about two weeks later he and 23 other men were smuggled into Iraq.

Four Iraqi teenagers guided them to the Iraqi border town of al-Qaim. They saw Syrian border guards in the distance who fired in the air. "They didn't try to stop us. We were already in Iraq," al-Shayea said.

At al-Qaim, the men were split into two groups. Al-Shayea said his group of 12 met an al-Qaida leader who had direct links with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida chief in Iraq who was later killed by a U.S. airstrike. He took the men's money and gave each $100.

"Then he asked us a question: 'Those who want to carry out martyrdom (suicide) attacks, raise your hands,'" said al-Shayea. "No one did."

Al-Shayea's group then spent a week at the Sunni fundamentalist stronghold of Rawa before al-Shayea and another Saudi man were taken to Ramadi and finally Baghdad.

Al-Shayea met his new "emir," or leader, an Iraqi who told him his first assignment was to take a fuel tanker to a Baghdad neighborhood to be collected by others.

"I felt scared. I didn't know Baghdad at all, and I also didn't know how to drive heavy vehicles," he said.

Also, he says, he was never told that the truck would contain 26 tons of butane gas, rigged to explode outside the Jordanian Embassy.

"That evening, we performed the last prayer of the day and had dinner — a dish of chicken and aubergines," said al-Shayea. "The emir gave me a crude map of my route."

Two al-Qaida militants drove with al-Shayea, but then jumped out 1,000 yards from where he was supposed to park the truck and fled in a waiting car.

The farther he drove, the more nervous he got until, 60 feet from the embassy, an explosion — believed triggered from afar — turned the back of the tanker into a fireball.

"I looked around me and I saw everything had melted. My hands had turned black. I jumped from the window and started running without thinking of what I was doing."

Thinking he was an innocent victim and a Shiite by his fake ID card, passers-by took al-Shayea to a Shiite-run hospital. There he kept silent for several days until he finally told his doctors the truth.

The world's first encounter with al-Shayea was on footage of his interrogation which was sent to Arab TV stations. Back in Buraida, his parents saw their son, face charred, head heavily bandaged, but alive. They were stunned. They had been notified he was dead and had held a wake for him.

Al-Shayea said he told his interrogators where to find a senior al-Zarqawi aide in Baghdad, revealed all he knew about al-Qaida, and denounced al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden as killers of innocents.

He says he hasn't seen nor heard from the friend who accompanied him since they parted soon after entering Iraq.

Today his hair has grown back, he sports a thick black beard and he can move without difficulty. He credits the medical care he received, including 30 operations, at the hospital of U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison.

He says that when he was handed over to the Americans a couple of days after his interrogation at the Iraqi Interior Ministry, he was scared because he had heard about the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

"But the care with which the American officers carried me down to the car when they came to take me made me relax," said al-Shayea. "One spoke Arabic and tried to put me at ease."

After almost six months of medical care and interrogations during which al-Shayea said he was treated well, he was visited by three Saudi officers.

"They told me they were there for my sake," said al-Shayea. "They allowed me to write a letter to my parents."

They also asked him if he would tell his story publicly. He says he replied that he would have volunteered to do so even if they hadn't asked.

A couple of weeks later, in mid-2005, al-Shayea was flown home. His parents were at the airport. "I took my dad in my arms, crying, and kept asking for forgiveness," he said.

He spent a couple of months in the hospital and then was moved to al-Ha'ir Jail where he says he was given a TV set, newspapers and plenty of food. He also read a lot of books. One of them — which he says he would never have imagined he would read — is the Arabic classic "One Thousand and One Nights."

This is an excellent article in many many ways.

Most significant, every DemonCrap should be asked to read this article and answer a few basic questions:

a) Doesn’t this article suggest that a large part of the “insurgency” is recruited from outside Iraq?

b) Doesn’t it sound like some of the recruitment is done by lies and deception?

c) Doesn’t it sound like the recruiters are absolute monsters without feeling?

d) Why do the Democrats want to give these monsters a victory by cutting and running and abandoning Iraq to the likes of these?

e) Don’t the Americans come off as compassionate caring people who will aid their former enemies? (Remember the US actions towards Japan and Germany after WWII was over!)

f) Don’t you think that a great many Iraqi people want us to continue to help suppress the violence and help them get on with their lives?

g) Repeat question d) Why do the Democrats want to give these monsters a victory by cutting and running and abandoning Iraq to the likes of these? Is it that you would rather have Americans defeated so as to not give President Bush a victory? Is your hatred of Bush so great that you would allow innocent Iraqi people to suffer, and American soldiers to die for a cause you want to loose?

Mike

The truth is coming out ,sadly I doubt the MSM will report it.

Well...it's not SADLY

It's intentional......

There is a book (now available in paperback ):

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Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left
(Hardcover)
by David Horowitz

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And reviews:

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Editorial Reviews

Rich Lowry, Editor National Review

David Horowitz is synonymous with pyrotechnics. A historian and polemicist of the first order, he is paid the ultimate compliment --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Davis Hanson, Author, Ripples of Battle

An original look at those who want us to fail in the Middle East, both at home and abroad. The --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

***********************************************************

See all Editorial Reviews

Fascinating Analysis of Leftist Goals, August 13, 2006

Reviewer: N. Sincerity - See all my reviews

A former 1960s radical, Horowitz is well-acquainted with the Leftist mindset. In this book, he strives to explain the modern alliance between left wing progressivists and radical Islamofascists. He argues that this alliance is based on a common desire to destroy Western capitalism. Leftist sympathy with Islamofascist ideas makes no sense from an intellectual point of view, given that countries ruled by radical Islamists are among the most racist, sexist, theocratic states in the world today. However, Leftists have recognized that they can benefit politically from destructive terrorist attacks on the Western world. A West under attack can be made to turn on its leaders in fear and desperation (as they did in Spain after the Madrid train bombings). Only once people reject current government structures can the Left execute its anti-capitalist revolution and build a new reality that mirrors the Leftist view of utopia.

The complete and utter idealogical hypocrisy of the Islamofascist-Leftist alliance is distressing, but as Horowitz reminds us,

Leftists radicals truly believe the ends justify the means.

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Saudi turns his back on jihad

Unconquerable Nation: Chapter 4 A Sharper Sword
Rand Corp. ^ | Brian Michael Jenkins

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1760041/posts
Posted on 12/29/2006 3:53:35 PM CST by Valin

(snip)
Get Detainees to Renounce Terrorism

Political warfare does not end with terrorist captivity. Lacking a strategy, we have competing views of what should be done with suspected terrorist detainees: interrogate them for operational intelligence, detain them for the duration of the war, bring them to trial before military tribunals or civilian courts, hand them over for imprisonment in their countries of origin. But turning detainees against violence should be considered as important as interrogation. Rehabilitation is more important than prosecution, especially if it can be used to discourage jihadist recruiting. Those in custody should be offered the opportunity to quit the jihad, to repent, to publicly recant. We should not let our own desires for revenge or our determination to see justice done get in the way. We must be pragmatic. We are not settling blood debts, we are waging a political war.

The objective cannot be to accumulate ever-growing numbers of detainees, nor should it be merely to reduce the number held. The United States has requested that some countries take back their own nationals among the detainees, but the recipient country must sign an agreement that it will not abuse the prisoners in its custody and that it will permit inspections by a third party. This concern for the detainees’ welfare is legitimate; however, given the U.S. record, it is viewed in other nations as extraordinary hypocrisy. Not surprisingly, thus far there are few takers.

One of our top objectives should be to identify those who never were enemy combatants but were picked up in error and held for long periods. The authorities should avoid any temptation to cover initial errors by obtaining false confessions as a condition for prompt release. We have no right to hold these people, but we should also facilitate their reentry into society, assist them if we can, enlist their assistance if they are willing, and ensure as much as possible that their understandable anger does not lead them directly into the jihadist camp.

Those who truly are jihadists will, of course, require a different approach. The experience of other countries offers a number of examples. Determined to reduce the number of IRA detainees, British authorities compiled evidence to justify the release of those individuals whose family or community backgrounds suggested that they could be moved away from violence. This reduced both the population of detainees and the alienation in the communities from which they came. The British also encouraged (and covertly assisted) paramilitary leaders in exploring their political options.

Italy, a Catholic country, used an appropriate religious term to encourage Red Brigades prisoners to renounce terrorism and cooperate with authorities. Those who did so were called “repentants,” and their sentences were reduced accordingly. The mere fact that some repented dismayed those still at large, and the information the repentants provided was crucial in cracking the terrorists’ campaign.

Other innovative approaches are being pursued today by other countries. In Yemen, Islamic scholars challenged a group of defiant al Qaeda prisoners to a theological debate. “If you convince us that your ideas are justified by the Quran, then we will join you in the struggle,” the scholars told the terrorists. “But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence.” The scholars won the debate, and a number of the prisoners renounced violence, were released, and were given help in finding jobs. Some have since offered advice to Yemeni security services—indeed, a tip from one led to the death of al Qaeda’s top leader in the country.

Turning terrorists around is not easy, and it doesn’t always work. Reportedly, some of those released in Yemen have slipped back into jihadist circles, but we should not expect, nor do we need, 100 percent success.

Saudi Arabia has launched its own campaign by mobilizing some of its most militant clerics, including one whom Osama bin Laden tried to recruit as a spiritual guide of the jihad, to discourage recruitment and reeducate imprisoned jihadists. The program involves teams of clerics and psychiatrists who daily engage individual prisoners in intense religious discussions that can go on for hours at a time. It is almost a mirror of the intense indoctrination that jihadist recruits receive on their way in. If the conversion is considered successful, the individual is released and helped to find a job, or even a wife, but is also kept under close surveillance. At the same time, counselors employed by the government infiltrate jihadist web sites and chat rooms to argue with al Qaeda sympathizers.

It is difficult to assess results. Saudi authorities claim that they have succeeded in changing the thinking of 250 online sympathizers, but how do we know whether they truly think differently now? About 500 jihadists have completed the prison course and been released, but critics charge that 85 to 90 percent might be faking.

With only 36 detainees, Singapore has developed a comprehensive strategy that could provide a model for the United States. In 2003, it approached Islamic religious teachers, asking them to assist in counseling the detainees. The effort grew into the Religious Rehabilitation Group. Unpaid volunteer religious teachers studied the jihadists’ literature, identified specific areas where it contradicted or misinterpreted the Quran, prepared a training manual, and recruited other Islamic teachers to participate in the effort.

The group has provided hundreds of counseling sessions to reeducate and rehabilitate the detainees. The teachers admit it is slow work. Some of the detainees remain obstinate; only a few have been released, and they are required to continue attending classes at the mosque. The program has been expanded into lectures at mosques aimed at insulating the community against the jihadists’ extremist interpretations.

A separate community program in Singapore, set up with government encouragement in 2002, provides support to the detainees’ families. The program will facilitate the reintegration of those detainees who are released. Being aware that their families are being helped is a source of comfort to them, and it creates a better environment for the counseling.

Success in any of these programs may not be validly measured by the percentage of individuals who claim to have abandoned jihadism or the sincerity of that claim, which lies beyond our ability to assess. The same was true of Vietnam’s ralliers and Italy’s repentants. But public recantations, explanations of how people succumbed to jihadist recruiting, descriptions of recruiting techniques, invitations to come in with one’s honor intact—even a few of these can be used to undermine recruiting and create uncertainty in jihadist ranks.
(snip)

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