Repentant Terrorists: Three Strikes and You’r Out, Depending…………….
“On Nov. 9, 2007, after years of (1) incarceration at the detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Mohammed al-Awfi and more than a dozen other suspected militants boarded a plane bound for their home country, Saudi Arabia…….. Because there was no evidence Awfi had engaged in violence, the Saudis did not consider him a security risk at home. They transferred him to the Care Center, a rehabilitation program for Islamist extremists in a desert resort town just outside Riyadh…… By early 2008, Awfi had done his time at the center and was released. Then, during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, he had a revelation of sorts, according to a jihadi publication and his own subsequent confession: (2) He decided he wanted to "glorify Islam" with violence and "join" his brother, whom he said was martyred in Afghanistan…… So, along with a handful of other Saudis, he fled to Yemen. Awfi eventually surfaced in a video in January 2009, dressed in a Che Guevara-style beret and fatigues. He appeared with three other men -- one Saudi and two Yemenis -- to announce the formation of AQAP, the group that since has claimed responsibility for killing tourists in Yemen, for attempting to assassinate a Saudi official -- and for that Christmas Day attack…… What happened next is unclear. Either Awfi's relatives convinced him to turn himself in to Saudi authorities, or he was sold to Yemeni authorities by the Yemeni tribes who'd been hiding him. (A third, less likely, theory has Awfi pretending to surrender but continuing to work as a secret agent of AQAP, to test how far a repentant militant could get…….. (3) These days he's back in Saudi Arabia, living with his family under a kind of house arrest in a tony Riyadh apartment. He reportedly provides intelligence on his colleagues in AQAP. In a recent interview with the BBC, he claims he was coerced into joining the group and making the video………”
Okay, I am glad he's finally seen the right path, maybe.
This man has had two strikes now: Afghanistan and Yemen. Twice caught, twice freed. Presumably the next time, his third, will mean he is out.
He is lucky in one respect, though: he is not a Saudi Shi’a. If he were, he’d be deader than a doornail. At least he’d be dead as far as anyone outside the dungeons would know. But then in that case he wouldn’t have been allowed to join the exclusive al-Qaeda Club anyway. That is also true of Club Gitmo: not a single Shi'a is incarcerated the place with the best public health care system on American territory.
That is the problem with Middle East sectarianism: a person of the “wrong” faith can’t join the oligarchy and he can’t join the terrorists either. In a state of limbo, speaking politically.
Cheers
mhg
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