Al Qaeda Prisoners "Pinky Swear" to be Good; Released from Prison

By Pamela Mortimer

On the day before the Annapolis summit on the Middle East conflict, the Saudi royal family released 1,500 members of Al Qaeda from prison. The only requirement for the release was the promise of the prisoners to refrain from jihad within the Arabian Peninsula. In essence, the prisoners were released just because they said they’d be good.

Seriously.

As the U.S. State Department was catering to Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, the Saudi Interior Ministry released about 1,500 Al Qaeda members who were arrested as a result of the 2003 crackdowns against d by Osama bin Laden.

The story broke over the weekend in an article featured in the Al Watan, a Saudi newspaper. The article cited an interview with Muhammad al-Nujaimi, a member of a special committee designed to reform jihadists in the kingdom.

"The committee has met around 5,000 times to offer counseling to 3,200 people, who were accused of embracing the takfir ideology. The committee has successfully completed reforming 1,500 people," he said.

The ideology of takfir is prevalent throughout the kingdom, existing in both fundamentalist interpretations of Sunni and Shiite Islam. The ideology holds that there are separate rules that allow Muslims to kill, steal from and lie to nonbelievers.

While the Saudi state has often been targeted by Muslims for embracing the philosophies of takfir, its mosques and Ministry of Culture and Information have been exporting the faction of Islam that promotes the doctrine.

On Sunday, an American intelligence analyst stated that he was wary about the release of the prisoners. "This Saudi process of reform has been so opaque. What no one knows right now is whether the people who have gone through this program have pledged to stop practicing terror or whether they are only pledging to stop terror inside the kingdom."

Mr. Nujaimi told Al Watan that the reformed prisoners have vowed to end their campaign to rid the kingdom of infidels. "After several graded sessions with the committee, and having been convinced of their misguided vision, they renounced their erroneous ideologies, including the concept of driving out all infidels from the Arabian Peninsula," he said.

Simon Henderson, Director of the Gulf and Energy program at the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs, stated yesterday that he did not think the prisoner release was related to Mr. Faisal's visit. "I don't see this as being connected with the Saudi decision to take part in the Annapolis meeting," he said.

Regardless, Mr. Henderson was skeptical about the rehabilitation program. "This would appear to be 1,500 people reformed so far out of 3,200 who have entered the so-called counseling process," he said. "By my calculation, that is less than a 50% success rate. And what is success? They don't use violence in the kingdom. Does this mean they can use this elsewhere, for example, in Iraq?"