Saturday, May 18, 2013

A Brief History Of Jihadi Rehab Programs

Mohammed Jawad, one of the youngest detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is photographed at a family home in Kabul August 25, 2009, the morning after he returned to Afghanistan. (Omar Sobhani/Reuters)

Imams, Saunas, And Art Therapy: A Brief History Of Jihadi Rehab Programs -- Olga Khazan, The Atlantic

Could reform school be the next step for Guantanamo Bay prisoners?

Deep in Pakistan's Swat Valley, a 24-year-old man named Farooq was busy making a wooden lute called a rubab in a classroom last month. But Farooq isn't a woodworker -- he's a former Taliban fighter who was sent to the school by the Pakistani army with the goal of reforming him. With enough vocational and religious re-education, they hope, he won't be tempted to join up with extremist groups after his release.

"The Taliban had misguided me," he told NPR. "They told me I had to wage jihad against the Pakistani army. But now I understand that they used me. The army and this school helped me understand that."

Read more ....

My Comment: Call me skeptical .... but I have deep reservations that most of these detainees will embrace such a rehab program.

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