70% Jihaddist Recidivism Rate on Yemeni Religious Dialog Program
This article is about Saudi Arabia’s religious re-education program, and notes the Yemeni one was a failure.
According to Dr Mustafa Alani, director of security at the Gulf Research Centre, “around 3,000 jihadists are being targeted under the scheme”.
“They are not the real hardliners but they are still members of al-Qaeda-inspired cells who could otherwise become fighters.”
Dr Alani says that a similar scheme in Yemen has largely failed, with 70% of supposedly reformed jihadists who were released getting re-arrested for terrorist offences. In Saudi Arabia, he says, the re-arrest figure is just 5-7%.
Judge Hamoud al-Hittar, who ran the program, reportedly came out of the security forces. Al-Hittar is currently the head of the well funded Endowments Ministry.
