It's 10 PM -- Is Your Teenager An Extremist?
7 February 2005
(( Almost beyond all human possibility of anybody ever pokin' fun at
it adequately, _this_ gem is! ))
Joining al-Qaida? Please think again
Gerard Seenan
<< http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,1407359,00.html
As internet counselling services go, its scope is, at the very least,
ambitious. The latest in online help services is designed to address
the most extreme of social problems: the danger of straying into
international terrorism.
The service, set up by the authorities in Saudi Arabia, sets out to
persuade anyone thinking of joining Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network
to think again. There is also a hotline for families worried that
their sons are dabbling with murderous extremism.
Despite the formidable challenge, the Saudi authorities say the
website has had a great deal of success.
Saleh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh, Islamic affairs minister, said more than
250 people of the 800 who had contacted the site had decided to
forsake terrorism. "The rest are still continuing contact," he said at
an international counterterrorism conference in Saudi Arabia
Although the internet has long been a favoured tool for Islamist
terrorists seeking recruits, the Saudi initiative is believed to be
the first to use it so directly to divert young men away from the
militants.
Following a triple suicide bombing in Riyadh in May 2003, the Saudi
authorities cracked down on al-Qaida militants and religious scholars
who support them. They have also run a media campaign to encourage
Saudis to renounce violence and to make parents aware of signs that
their sons could be being drawn towards terrorist groups.
Saudi Arabia is home to the austere Wahhabi school of Islam, which is
blamed by some critics for fostering militancy. But Mr Sheikh said
that, since the internet service began last year, religious scholars
are counselling terrorists "one-to-one" to persuade them of their
errors.
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