Anti-Jihad 'University': Bringing Insurgents In From The Cold

Mon, 12 May 2008 09:07:59 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: While I was not permitted to talk privately with detainees, I visited both Camp Cropper, near Baghdad International Airport, and remote Camp Bucca, near Basra in southern Iraq.

A major tipping point in the program, say officers, was when detainees began volunteering for the classes being offered. Although al-Qaida detainees and the Takfiris (another group of religious extremists) pressured fellow Iraqis against participating in the very popular religious discussions, over 3,000 detainees have done so. “After Iraqis here learn how to read and write, they can read the Koran themselves for the first time,” says Sheikh Ali, a Sunni who counsels detainees and who, like most of the Iraqis working in the program, declined to have his surname used and must live in an American-guarded compound to avoid reprisals. “I’ve seen detainees break down and cry when they realize that the conduct they thought was sanctioned by God is actually a sin.”

Clip Source: www.city-journal.org

For the past nine months, Task Force 134—led by Major General Douglas M. Stone, a two-star Marine general who oversees civilian detention in Iraq—has been experimenting with a series of unconventional initiatives at two large “camps” where 23,245 suspected insurgents, Iraqi and foreign, are being held. The aim of these programs, which I visited in April, is not only to accelerate the identification and release of those falsely accused of “jihadi” activity, but also to de-radicalize and rehabilitate others who may have joined the insurgency primarily to feed their families, or because they were motivated by a militant, perverse interpretation of Islam.

Initial data, once in short supply, are impressive: of the 8,000 detainees released so far under the program, only 21 have been recaptured as a result of suspected insurgent activity, a rate that officers say is unprecedented. “It means that only .2 percent of those detained have returned to the fight,”

Tags: insurgents, iraqi, foreign, detainees, taqfiris, al-qaeda, reading lessons, classrooms, vocational facilities, work programs

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Anti-Jihad 'University': Bringing Insurgents In From The Cold