British PM Visits Terrorist Rehab Center

Saudi "De-Radicalization" Center Challenges Militant Attitudes Among Muslim Extremists

(AP)  British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met with former Saudi inmates of Guantanamo Bay as he toured a de-radicalization facility on Sunday.

Saudi officials claim their efforts at rehabilitating extremists using months of reasoned argument against radical Islam have a success rate of 80 to 90 percent: Only 35 people out of 3,200 in the program have been re-arrested for security offenses.

Brown told reporters after the trip that the center showed the Saudis "are committed to tackling extremists who poison young people with the evil ideology of terror."

"I was glad to have had the opportunity to witness how they are seeking to challenge the attitude of young people who would be vulnerable to being brought under the spell of extreme groups," he added.

An official at the center, Dr. Abdel Rahman Hadlaq, said when the men are released, they are given jobs and other support key to breaking their links with radicals.

"If we don't support them, someone else will support them," he said.

Brown spoke with six men at the facility near the capital Riyadh and shook hands with two inmates who had each spent six years at Guantanamo Bay for alleged links to al Qaeda.

Preventing young British Muslims, particularly those with family ties to Pakistan, from embracing violent extremism has become a key priority for Britain's security services since four British men killed 52 commuters in suicide bomb attacks on London's transport network in 2005.

Jonathan Evans, head of Britain's domestic spy agency MI5, has said his officers are monitoring around 2,000 potential terrorists in the U.K., who are planning around 30 potential attacks at any given time.

The Saudi inmates are kept in secure compounds with facilities such as gyms and swimming pools while imams give them lessons on moderate Islam.

The Riyadh facility is staffed by 100 clerics, 50 social workers and 30 other specialists.

Juma al-Dossary, 35, who has been at the facility for six months after six years at Guantanamo, said "they have convinced us logically."

Al-Dossary said the had been in the "wrong place at the wrong time" and fell in with extremists. He is now married, about to become a father and planning a career in computing.

None of the six men Brown met have been charged or convicted of any offense.

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A Cynic: One who not only reads bitter lessons from the past, but who is prematurely disappointed with the future. -- Anonymous

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"British PM Visits Terrorist Rehab Center"

I didnt know he was back in the US visiting the Whitehouse.