Terrorist Rehabilitation: The Soft Touch

They’re given a car, a wife, a wallet and two pairs of shoes. Saudi-Arabia is trying to integrate former Guantanamo prisoners back into society. A visit to the world’s only terrorist rehab center.

Ahmed Said Zuhair is enjoying it once again. With great pleasure, Number 669 is eying the bowl of tomato soup with mutton and okra and the fruit cup with bananas and apples sitting on the cafeteria table before him. Number 669 is the first thing he says when he introduces himself to anyone. That was his number when he was imprisoned at Guantanamo. He spent seven and a half years there, during more than half of which he was on a hunger strike. He was never charged with anything. When he was finally released in 2009 and sent to Saudi Arabia after spending four years in a windowless cell, he weighed only 108 pounds. “I had totally forgotten what food tasted like,” he says.

U.S. intelligence first suspected him of being one of the masterminds behind the bombing of the American destroyer, the USS Cole, in Yemen, which resulted in the deaths of 17 American sailors in 2000. Zuhair has always maintained that he was nothing but a small businessman working in Lahore, Pakistan, when Pakistanis sold him to U.S. intelligence for $5,000 – something that apparently happened to many other Saudis as well. A professional electrician by trade, he has three wives – one living in Saudi Arabia, the other two in Bosnia and Pakistan – and ten children. He now weighs 160 pounds and dreams of someday opening a small shop in his hometown of Jeddah, where his parents and siblings still live.

Zuhair is one of several Saudi Guantanamo returnees currently being reintegrated into society at the rehabilitation center 30 kilometers from the capital city of Riyadh. Saudis and Yemenis made up the largest contingents of Guantanamo prisoners. They have gradually been transported home by Saudi Airlines jumbo jets with just ten more awaiting transport. Upon arrival, they see a video that says, “This is not a hero’s welcome.” Sheik Ahmed Hamad Jelan then greets the passengers via the plane’s P.A. system, bidding them all a cordial welcome “in the name of police officials, physicians and airline personnel.” He adds, “Our sons have returned to Saudi Arabia; we’re happy they have come home again.”

Ahmed Hamad Jelan is Chief of the Mohammed bin Nayef Center for Care and Counseling, the official name of the rehabilitation facility. The 38-year-old has the charisma of a Bavarian parish priest, stout and good-natured, with a twinkle in his eyes. He is a specialist in Sharia law and is authorized, as his business card says, to perform marriages. He has treated 120 former Saudi inmates released from Guantanamo, as well as 173 Saudi Al Qaeda warriors, who were mostly captured in Iraq. “We try to avoid anything that looks like prison. We don’t even ask what they had done in the past,” Jelan says, adding that that’s the province of the Justice Ministry, not his staff of clergymen, social counselors and psychologists.

Nonetheless, a gauntlet of red and white concrete barriers protects the entrance to “the unit,” as everyone calls it. Some of the ten foot high walls surrounding these former desert weekend cottages are crowned with barbed wire. Ten of them have been leased by the government and contain a handful of simple dormitory rooms; outside, there are exercise yards, some even with a swimming pool or volleyball court, as well as places to sit beneath the palm trees. Families who used to come here seeking a weekend getaway from the hustle and bustle of the city can no longer do so. Some of the rooms are now inhabited by three to four former prisoners, some have been outfitted as small classrooms and others now contain game tables or a couple of simple armchairs and a television set.

In this “war on terror,” the temporary rehab center has long since become a showpiece. Experts from other Muslim countries have visited here, some coming from as far away as Malaysia and Indonesia in order to peek over the shoulders of Sheik Ahmed and his staff of thirty as they practice what they call “the soft touch.” Abdulraham Al Hadlaq explains the concept by saying, “in order to de-radicalize these people, we first have to gain their trust and help them get their lives back on an even keel.” Al Hadlaq has already made an international name for himself as a pioneer in the field of the “gentle rehabilitation” of terrorists.

As early as the start of the 1990s, Hadlaq lived in Egypt among radical Muslims, studying their views and sentiments. He received his PhD from the University of Idaho in 1994, where he wrote his dissertation entitled “Political Force Among Islamic Groups.” For the past four years, he has been head of the Ideological Security Division at the King Fahad Academy, where attendance by all Saudi police personnel is mandatory. He has researched the personal histories of more than 700 militant prisoners in an attempt to discover which young men might be more susceptible to Al Qaeda recruiters. Most of them, he found, come from large families, have no real occupational skills and a distinct lack of religious knowledge.

That’s why Hadlaq centered his rehab program on family, religious enlightenment and vocational training. One Western diplomat impishly described the basis of the program by saying, “each inmate gets a wife and a car and his relatives have to watch out for him from then on.” In reality, most families willingly get involved with the therapy because of their tribal backgrounds. Their families report them to the center’s staff or the police at the first sign of trouble, such as the sudden appearance of a money-filled envelope on the doorstep bearing the note “from your Mujahadin brothers.”

“We’re in direct competition with Al Qaeda; if we don’t pay them, Al Qaeda will,” is the word from the Ministry of the Interior. The transition into a new life is appropriately cushioned as well. Travel costs for visiting family members are reimbursed by the government during the first week. Each ex-warrior gets a suitcase containing shirts, trousers and two pairs of shoes. Their official “starting over” kit even includes a container of skin cream, a wallet and a wristwatch. After they complete their rehabilitation, the government provides them with new home furnishings. On top of that, they get free rent for one year as well as 550 Euro ($800) per month of financial assistance until they find a job. Should the repentant decide to marry, the state provides him with a 7000 Euro ($10,000) dowry.

Abdul Hakim Bukhari intends to work in his hometown as a taxi driver, he explains as he constantly fingers his prayer beads. He was Number 493 during his stay at Guantanamo, which lasted six years and three months, although he claims to have been nothing more than a minor dealer in Afghan carpets. “Here in the rehab center I’ve found the strength after all those years to start life over again,” he says as Sheik Ahmed and his team nod approvingly.

Ali Abdullah Alafnan, a psychology professor who makes weekly visits to the center, is part of that team. He offers a course called “Ten Steps Toward Positive Thinking.” He said, “we were surprised how inferior these men felt. Previously, they projected an image of being Islam’s elite with the power to decide life or death.” In actuality, however, many of the former Al Qaeda fighters had little self-confidence and wanted to finally admit to their deeds.

The inmates seek counseling predominantly for marriage difficulties. They hadn’t seen their wives and children for eight or more years; some were separated or divorced. In addition to this social counseling, there’s also a strict ideological program that is mandatory for all – the Sharia course. The clergymen insist they’re not there to convert or brainwash anyone. Their teachings concentrate mainly on two subjects: jihad and takfir, which are the ideological pivot points in the disagreement with Al Qaeda. Jihad – what is the correct interpretation of the Qur’an? And takfir – why isn’t it right to simply kill Muslims and outsiders if they’ve been judged to be blasphemers?

“One can find exactly the same disagreements in internet chat rooms,” says Abdulraham Hadlaq. In his department, “Ideological Security,” at the King Fahad Academy, 200 people are constantly online day and night “engaging in arguments with extremists.” They often hire ex-radicals, saying they are “more familiar with the jargon used” by their former colleagues. The rehabilitation center simply calls their work a “kind of investment that may cost millions, but is money well spent,” even if the recidivism numbers among ex-Guantanamo inmates are cause for concern. Eleven of them have rejoined Al Qaeda and have probably resettled in Yemen. Five more have been arrested again and an additional five have disappeared from sight. In all, the recidivism rate is just under 20 percent, a rate Hadlaq says is better than in any American prison, adding that concrete success of their program won’t be seen for several years yet.

But he also sees little reason for premature optimism. Saudi newspapers report that as many as two million of their citizens are sympathetic to Al Qaeda and 10,000 of those are willing to take up arms for Al Qaeda right now – and they come from every societal level. The seriousness Saudi leadership places on the long-term dimensions of the problem may be seen in their plans to expand their prison system. Word in the capital is that five special prisons for 5,000 militants popped up out of the ground almost overnight. And the temporary terror rehabilitation center with its 100-man capacity will soon be replaced by five permanent facilities across the country.

Abdulraham Hadlaq already has the blueprints for them in his computer.