Saudi Effort Draws on Radical Clerics to Combat Lure of Al-Qaeda

Abdel Mohsen al-Obeikan is one of several once-militant clerics who have joined the Saudi government's efforts to dampen the influence of al-Qaeda. (By David B. Ottaway -- The Washington Post)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia has mobilized some of its most militant clerics, including one Osama bin Laden sought to recruit as his spiritual guide, in a campaign to combat the continuing appeal of al-Qaeda's ideology in the kingdom.

The effort has targeted hundreds of young Saudis whom security forces here have tracked down and arrested as sympathizers or potential recruits. They are then subjected to an intense program of religious reeducation by clerics that sometimes lasts for months.

Saudi authorities say that about 500 youths have completed the program and been freed since it began in 2004. They remain under close surveillance. "None has been found to get reinvolved in terrorism so far," said Lt. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, which runs the program together with the Islamic Affairs Ministry. "Their ideology has changed, and they are convinced they were wrong."

Ministry officials denied a request to interview any of the young people. The Saudi who relayed the decision said officials worried about what they might say to a foreign reporter.

Mohsen al-Awajy, an Islamic lawyer who is known here as a former radical, was skeptical of the effect. "I'm afraid about 85 to 90 percent of those who claim they are changing their minds as a result of this dialogue might not be truthful," he said.

Turki conceded that Saudi authorities were having great difficulty curbing the appeal of al-Qaeda's ideology among young people, who he said are incited by "the daily killings in Iraq" and a constant barrage of appeals to holy war on Internet sites run by Islamic extremists. Hundreds have crossed into Iraq to join the insurgency there. "As long as the ideology is alive," Turki said, "we cannot guarantee no new terrorists will come along."

Abdel Mohsen al-Obeikan, a former militant cleric now playing a prominent part in the reeducation program, compared the challenge to the war on drugs in the United States. "You cannot stop drugs, either," he said. As soon as one terrorist group is eliminated, he said, another pops up that is even more dangerous: "We need a long time. We should be patient."

Still, Saudi authorities argue that they have made real progress in uprooting al-Qaeda inside the kingdom and that part of the reason is their efforts with the young people. But a foiled attack on Feb. 24 against the world's largest oil terminal at Abqaiq sobered U.S. and Saudi officials. "Abqaiq shows the problem is not over," said U.S. Ambassador James C. Oberwetter in an interview here.

The Internet has become the main battleground in the struggle against al-Qaeda ideology, according to three members of the counseling committee that the Interior Ministry set up to run the reeducation program. The body has 22 full-time members, who get help from 100 Islamic clerics and 30 psychiatrists.

Islamic counselors selected by the committee have succeeded in infiltrating a number of extremist Web sites and Internet chat rooms. Islamic Affairs Minister Saleh al-Asheikh told reporters in February that the government had established dialogue with 800 al-Qaeda sympathizers this way and succeeded in changing the thinking of 250.

The Saudi government established the reeducation program in 2004 after conducting three-hour interviews with 639 prisoners, according to one committee members' account of the program's origins. "We asked, 'Who do you like? Who do you read? Who are the top models for you?' " said Abdulrahman al-Hahlaq, a U.S.-educated Saudi who is on the committee.

They discovered, he said, that the most influential person was not bin Laden, a Saudi, but the Palestinian-Jordanian cleric Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, who was the initial spiritual guide for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. Both come from the same Jordanian village, Zarqa.