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Story Archives of 'taliban'
Rehab for Terrorists
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, October 27, 2009.President Obama said today that he won’t be rushed into sending more troops to Afghanistan. Last night he told a crowd in Miami that he is serious about shutting down the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The question of what to do about the Taliban insurgency and the remaining Gitmo detainees has yet to be answered. America might consider taking a page from Saudi Arabia’s treatment of extremist militants. The home country of Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers is not known for its leniency, which makes the Saudi government’s terrorist rehabilitation program even more extraordinary.
The rehab program includes religious re-education, art therapy, buying cars for former extremists, and even helping them find wives. Saudi officials claim they’ve "reformed" more than a thousand terrorists, and that the program has been 95 percent effective. But in January, the Saudi kingdom disclosed that eleven graduates of the program were rearrested for joining militant groups.
Max Fisher at The Atlantic has been tracking the Saudi program, and joins us with more.
The Atlantic: Applying Saudi Counterterrorism To The Afghanistan War
The Atlantic Wire: Seeking Fissures Between Taliban and Al Qaeda
The Christian Science Monitor: How effective are terrorist rehabilitation programs?
(Photo by Mushroom and Rooster via Flickr/Creative Commons)
Drinking Tea with the Taliban
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, June 16, 2009.Nicholas Schmidle was a tall, blond, 27-year-old-aspiring journalist when he traveled to Pakistan on a fellowship. Newly married and adventurous, he learned Urdu and set out on a two-year journey.
In his travels, he met radical jihadists and leaders, visited a Taliban camp in the Swat Valley and witnessed a public lashing. He watched a country in transition as President Musharraf's regime grasped for control, and a nation in turmoil after the assasination of Benazir Bhutto.
All this before he was swiftly kicked out for filing stories on the growing power of the Taliban in the Swat Valley and tribal and border regions. These are precisely the areas where the Pakistani military is now six weeks into a campaign against Taliban and Islamic jihadi forces.
Nicholas Schmidle tells his story in a new book, To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan. He joins us from The New America Foundation, where he is an American Strategy Fellow.
(Photo courtesy Al Jazeera English via Flickr/Creative Commons)
Women and the Taliban
By Naheed Mustafa on Monday, June 15, 2009.
As protests continue in Iran, officials in Afghanistan are warning of impending violence there. In the face of US troop reinforcements and this August’s presidential elections, officials believe Taliban rebels may try to turn this summer into the bloodiest yet.
