Source: The Hill

A pressing issue for the next administration and Congress will be to address American detention policy for terror suspects and sympathizers. With an increasing recognition that the United States cannot continue to detain foreign nationals at Guantanamo indefinitely, the Saudi counter-terrorism experience can be very instructive for a policy community searching for new approaches to combat and counter extremist recruitment and radicalization. Following a series of deadly domestic terrorist attacks in 2003, the government of Saudi Arabia began an ambitious and wide-ranging counter-terrorism effort. In addition to traditional security and law enforcement efforts to kill and capture terrorists, a parallel strategy was launched to combat the ideological justifications for violent extremism within the kingdom. This ‘soft’ counter-terrorism strategy is made up of three components: prevention programs to deter people from getting involved with violent extremism, rehabilitation programs designed to encourage supporters and sympathizers to renounce violence, and aftercare programs to prevent recidivism and to reintegrate people back into Saudi society.

This strategy has perhaps become best known for its counseling program which seeks to encourage Saudi security detainees to repent and repudiate extremist ideologies. Through intensive religious debate and psychological counseling, religious scholars work to demonstrate to participants that they have been following corrupted interpretations of Islam. After proving that they had deviated from proper Islamic doctrine, the counselors then teach the official state-endorsed interpretation of Islam which stresses loyalty, obedience, and recognition of authority.

One of the keys to the program’s success is the extensive social support given to a detainee and his family, intended offset hardship and short-circuit further radicalization within a family. In a combination of coercion and cooptation, Saudi authorities use traditional cultural factors such as honor, family hierarchies, and powerful social obligations to prevent recidivism. Of the roughly 1,400 program participants that have renounced their beliefs through this program and been released, only 35 have been rearrested on security offenses. That’s about a 2% recidivist rate. As of last November, under a parallel program to reintegrate Guantanamo returnees, none have reoffended. Unlike in other countries, repatriated Saudis do not seem return to the battlefield.

Similar programs to counter-radicalize Islamist extremists have been adopted in numerous countries including Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and many others have plans to start programs. The US military has employed comparable tactics in Iraq with insurgent detainees, a move that has been credited in part with curbing recidivism. To be sure, such programs will not work universally, and there will always by hardcore extremists that are beyond rehabilitation. However, the Saudi effort is the best funded and longest continually run program, and has become a de facto model for other countries seeking to implement a counter-radicalization program. It is therefore important to understand. Moreover, the growth of these programs is recognition that modern violent Islamist extremism cannot be defeated solely through traditional hard security measures.