TERRORISTS - A BETTER WAY???

Last night I heard a BBC broadcast and David Blair mentioned that the Saudis had some success in changing the minds of Al Qaeda terrorists and that reminded me of a similar story about Yemen from a couple of years ago.

Koranic duels ease terror
from the February 04, 2005 edition
By James
Brandon Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

SANAA, YEMEN – When Judge Hamoud al-Hitar announced that he and our other Islamic scholars would challenge Yemen's Al Qaeda prisoners to a theological contest, Western antiterrorism experts warned that this high-stakes gamble would end in disaster.

Nervous as he faced five captured, yet defiant, Al Qaeda members in a Sanaa prison, Judge Hitar was inclined to agree. But banishing his doubts, the youthful cleric threw down the gauntlet, in the hope of bringing peace to his troubled homeland.

"If you can convince us that your ideas are justified by the Koran, then we will join you in your struggle," Hitar told the militants. "But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence."

The prisoners eagerly agreed.

Now, two years later, not only have those prisoners been released, but a relative peace reigns in Yemen. And the same Western experts who doubted this experiment are courting Hitar, eager to hear how his "theological dialogues" with captured Islamic militants have helped pacify this wild and mountainous country, previously seen by the US as a failed state, like Iraq and Afghanistan.

I can't find the David Blair segment on the BBC's site but I did find a recent op-ed he published in the Daily Telegraph:

How King Abdullah has tackled terrorism
By David Blair
Last Updated:
12:01am GMT 30/10/2007

Al-Qa'eda mounted a deadly campaign inside Saudi Arabia in 2003 and 2004, carrying out a series of bomb attacks.

Abdullah's response was notably effective. Saudi Arabia has probably succeeded in crushing most of the al-Qa'eda cells inside its borders. While the possibility of an attack remains, the threat has been greatly reduced.

Saudi Arabia's success cannot be explained by the brutality of its security forces. The kingdom runs a sophisticated campaign to rehabilitate terrorists inside its jails. Prisoners are brought before religious scholars who point out their erroneous interpretation of Islam.

If judged rehabilitated, ex-terrorists are rewarded with their freedom, a car and a job. Of the roughly 700 detainees who have experienced this course, the failure rate is between 10 and 20 per cent.