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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Gitmo prisoner reveals: Saudi “deradicalization program” is really a jihad training program

Dec 1, 2016 4:56 pm By Robert Spencer

“You guys want to send me back to Saudi Arabia because you believe there is a de-radicalization program on the surface. True. You are 100 percent right, there is a strong — externally, a strong — de-radicalization program. But make no mistake, underneath there is a hidden radicalization program. There is a very hidden strong — way stronger in magnitude — broader in financing, in all that.” Al-Sharbi added that the Saudis are “encouraging” former detainees “to fight their jihad in the States.”

Deradicalization programs, upon which the West has placed so much hope, have long been an obvious failure. Such programs are based on the premise that the true teachings of Islam are peaceful, and so all that needs to be done is show the jihadis how they’re misunderstanding the Qur’an and overlooking its teachings of peace, and all will be well. But since the Qur’an and Sunnah are full of commands to make war against and subjugate unbelievers, the idea that jihadis can be “deradicalized” by reference to them is just a myth told to Infidel authorities to lull them into complacency.

Well, let’s see. De-radicalization programs have been implemented elsewhere, notably in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. Let’s look at how they fared. From the Jihad Watch archives:

11 ex-Gitmo prisoners flee the Saudi “rehabilitation program” and join up with terrorist groups

Jaw-dropper: 25 former Gitmo detainees “return to militancy” despite Saudi rehab program!

Graduate from Saudi jihadi rehab program killed in Syrian jihad: “killed a large number of Christians before his acceptance by God”

Flight 253 jihadist wasn’t cured by Saudi anti-jihad art therapy

Former Guantanamo detainee now top al-Qaeda ideologue — “He was transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2006 where he was placed in a national rehabilitation project.”

Indonesian government admits that its jihadist rehab program is a failure

And now we discover that they’re not just a failure, but a scam.

rehabilitiation_for_jihadis

“Gitmo prisoner reveals that Saudi ‘terrorist rehab’ center is a scam,” by Paul Sperry, New York Post, November 28, 2016:

Counterterrorism experts have long suspected Saudi Arabia’s “rehabilitation” center for terrorists does a poor job of de-radicalizing jihadists. But a Saudi detainee at Guantanamo Bay now reveals it’s actually a recruiting and training factory for jihad.

According to recently declassified documents, senior al Qaeda operative Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi told a Gitmo parole board that the Saudi government has been encouraging previously released prisoners to rejoin the jihad at its terrorist reform school, officially known as the Prince Mohammed bin Naif Counseling and Care Center.

The Obama administration has praised the effectiveness of the Saudi rehab program — which uses “art therapy,” swimming, ping-pong, PlayStation and soccer to de-radicalize terrorists — and conditioned the release of dozens of Gitmo prisoners, including former Osama bin Laden bodyguards, on their enrollment in the controversial program.

To date, 134 Saudi detainees have been transferred to the Saudi reform camps in Riyadh and Jeddah. Last year, nine Yemeni detainees were sent there, as well, and more are expected to follow over the next two months, as President Obama strives to meet his campaign goal of closing Gitmo.

Al-Sharbi dropped a bombshell on the Gitmo parole board at his hearing earlier this year when he informed members that the Saudi kingdom was playing them for suckers. “You guys want to send me back to Saudi Arabia because you believe there is a de-radicalization program on the surface.

“True. You are 100 percent right, there is a strong — externally, a strong — de-radicalization program. But make no mistake, underneath there is a hidden radicalization program,” al-Sharbi added. “There is a very hidden strong — way stronger in magnitude — broader in financing, in all that.”

Al-Sharbi is one of the longest-serving, and most unrepentant, prisoners at Gitmo. A Saudi national with an electrical engineering degree from King Fahd University, he attended a US flight school associated with two of the 9/11 hijackers. He traveled to Afghanistan in the summer of 2001 and trained at an al Qaeda camp, building IEDs to use against allied forces.

Al-Sharbi was captured March 28, 2002, at an al Qaeda safehouse in Faisalabad, Pakistan, with senior al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah. According to his US intel dossier, he told interrogators that “the US got what it deserved from the terrorist attacks on 9/11.”

Given a chance at parole after 14 years, however, al-Sharbi was surprisingly frank with the board.

He explained that Riyadh is actively recruiting and training fighters to battle Iranian elements in neighboring Yemen and Syria. Saudi views Shiite-controlled Iran as a regional threat to its security.

“They’re launching more wars and the [United] States is backing off from the region,” he said. “They’re poking their nose here and here and there and they’re recruiting more jihadists, and they’ll tell you, ‘Okay, go fight in Yemen. Go fight in Syria.’ ”

Al-Sharbi said the Saudis also are “encouraging” former detainees “to fight their jihad in the States.”

“It’s not like a past history,” he said. “It’s increasing.”…

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Filed Under: Featured, Guantanamo, Saudi Arabia Tagged With: deradicalization programs, Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi


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Comments

  1. Mockingjay says

    Dec 1, 2016 at 5:22 pm

    Hahaha –

    I’m sorry guys – I do know this really is no laughing matter – but these kind of articles are just all so completely and UTTERLY absurd – and they do sound like a headline from the Onion – you know, “America’s Finest News Source”….

    !

    • Mockingjay says

      Dec 1, 2016 at 5:26 pm

      So – here’s something else to laugh at:

      http://www.theonion.com/article/gaunt-weathered-john-kerry-leads-prisoner-uprising-54706

    • vladkoval says

      Dec 1, 2016 at 7:52 pm

      Finally someone opened my eyes!
      Islam in fact is Religion of Peace, Love and Tolerance!
      And the only danger that may come from muslims – is passionate kissing you to death)))

      • More Ham Ed says

        Dec 1, 2016 at 10:49 pm

        “vladkoval says December 1, 2016 at 7:52 pm Finally someone opened my eyes!
        Islam in fact is Religion of Peace, Love and Tolerance!”

        Thanks for the sarcasm.

        Religion Of Pieces (not sarcasm).

    • A Harris USA says

      Dec 2, 2016 at 4:01 pm

      These Obama ideas of ” reforming ” these pig savages is a sick joke!!! Obama knows his Koran, and KNOWS what it teaches them. The only reform for these pigs is death… Why do we have to pay for this joke?? I pray that Trump will put the thumb screws on these savages before they get “reformed” in Saudi Arabia!!! What I am watching very close, and we all should be, is if Obama closes Gitmo, and turns these savages loose on us!!! If he closes Gitmo, and the savages get loose, and kill ONE American, just ONE, then Obama should be brought up on sedition !!!!

  2. gravenimage says

    Dec 1, 2016 at 5:32 pm

    Gitmo prisoner reveals: Saudi “deradicalization program” is really a jihad training program
    …………………….,.

    Given Saudi Arabia’s involvement in 9/11, this should surprise no one…

  3. Angemon says

    Dec 1, 2016 at 5:34 pm

    Wait, this is news? Isn’t that what we knew all along, although had no proof of – that the house of Saud, like any other muslim ruling body in any given muslim country, do not combat “extremism” but simply redirect it elsewhere?

  4. davej says

    Dec 1, 2016 at 5:40 pm

    How can you expect to have a “deradicalization” program inside a country that is 99% Muslim, promotes Wahabbism and funds mosque building around the world?

    I don’t think you can have one anywhere because Islam and the Quran are inherently radical. Only true apostates can be rehabilitated and there are not many of those, especially not coming out of Gitmo.

  5. Wellington says

    Dec 1, 2016 at 5:43 pm

    The first thing that came to mind when I saw the photo above, even before reading the article here by Robert Spencer, was that another sicko Muslim (pardon the redundancy) had “scored” with a ten-year old boy.

    Do I now instinctively (never mind experiential and standard knowledge) view Islam this way? You bet I do.

  6. vladkoval says

    Dec 1, 2016 at 7:11 pm

    That’s why Russia actually has no problem with Jihad, and “radicalization of muslims”, I guess…
    https ://en.wiki pedia.org/wiki/2013_Biryulyovo_riots
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZA7uCbGpks
    Video with Russian cops politely interrogating the suspect… the he repents and confesses of the murder.

  7. Mac-101 says

    Dec 1, 2016 at 7:11 pm

    So why did this Saudi Electrical Engineer Terrorist speak the truth to the Parole Board?

    • David, Thailand says

      Dec 1, 2016 at 7:27 pm

      Probably to show we’ve been so dumbed down by the Obama admin that he’ll still be released into the Saudi jihad program.

      • Mac-101 says

        Dec 1, 2016 at 9:07 pm

        Most likely Obama will pardon him on the way out. No LOL!

  8. JOhn Doe says

    Dec 1, 2016 at 9:01 pm

    What a Disgusting excuse for a country. Kingdom of mohammed pedofilia.

    Barack Hussein is shopping for an golf home in
    Indian Wells……….

    Thank God we have a new President!!!!!

    • A Harris USA says

      Dec 2, 2016 at 4:08 pm

      John Doe, I live in So Cal, and there is a radical mosque in the Indian Wells area. I am sure Obama will attend that sewer. The mosque had someone, (God Bless ’em) put bacon on the door of that Mosque!! LMAO !! BIG deal!! The justice dept. went into a frenzy and said it was a “hate” crime……Never mind what happened in San Berdo, just up the road!!! Thank God Our new POTUS is Donald J Trump!!! Not Uma and Hillary…

  9. Glenn Wilson says

    Dec 1, 2016 at 9:14 pm

    Deradicalization can be accomplished by a couple of rounds to the back of the head.

  10. mortimer says

    Dec 2, 2016 at 2:21 am

    A true “De-radicalization program” would be a “deprogramming out of Islam”…this would mean a complete demolition of Islamic belief. Such a program of ‘de-Islamization’ is possible if some government has the wisdom and guts to do it.

    It would have to be done by governments as an incentive for detainees reducing their life sentences. Once completely ‘clear’ of Islamic delusion, they would train others and teach the same material until it became second nature. At that point, they could ‘graduate’.

  11. BarryR says

    Dec 2, 2016 at 2:37 am

    If he’s been in Gitmo for 14 years how can he claim to know what’s happening in Saudi Arabia? They give Gitmo prisoners iPads with internet these days?

  12. concerned canadian says

    Dec 2, 2016 at 7:16 am

    is that Khadr in the picture laughing??

    Canadas posted child of terrorism

  13. Florida Jim says

    Dec 2, 2016 at 9:53 am

    Is there anything truthful about Islam, muslims or any muslim nation they appear to ll lie at ill without shame and America bows to them as if they were good , honest people. They are all liars like Obama and all should be deported from any nation that has a Constitution and believes in it. Freedom and Islam is incompatible and there is no sense denying it one day longer.Mosques and Imams everywhere are breeding hatred as they have for centuries.

  14. John A. Marre says

    Dec 2, 2016 at 4:20 pm

    Only a deluded fool could think that it was possible to deradicalize them.

  15. Terrie McCormack says

    Dec 2, 2016 at 6:03 pm

    I’m not surprised since I already know that hillary and obama were supplying weapons to the saudis so they could arm up ISIS. Our new congress had better prosecute the criminals in our government or we will be facing another election with ma and pa barker trying to be president.

    • Angemon says

      Dec 3, 2016 at 12:26 pm

      Are Americans supposed to be responsible for what people do with the materials they buy from them?

  16. Ric says

    Dec 2, 2016 at 6:18 pm

    Please, tell me it isn’t so. I placed a lot of faith in this deradicalization program. Ironically, CNN, the Beeb and other Islam and Saudi apologists will deem this as another Islamophobia ploy. Moreover, this is what is wrong with Western leadership, they are readily duped, gullible and cretinous when it comes to Islam or historical fact. Place these ingredients in a petri-dish and voila, a toxic contagion that affects the entire world but especially the West.

    • gravenimage says

      Dec 2, 2016 at 6:25 pm

      Westerners tend to be honest, and so overall we are too likely to consider others to be honest as well. Tending to think well of others is not in and of itself a bad thing–but when faced with those who are habitually dishonest–as Muslims–it is naively foolish.

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