With its indoor swimming pool, sun-splashed patios and liveried staff, the Saudi complex has the trappings of a five-star resort, but it is actually a rehab centre — for violent jihadists. But the rehab facility, founded in 2004, is one of the centrepieces of Saudi Arabia’s strategy to expunge violent extremism at home. The centre boasts of a “success rate of 86 percent”, Abu Maghayed said, measured by those men who did not return to jihad for at least a decade after graduating from the centre. Those who refuse to reform after a minimum stay of three months at the centre are returned to “the judicial process”, Abu Maghayed said. Abu Maghayed showed AFP one early painting, which he said depicted a gloomy “Guantanamo mentality” — with splashes of orange, the colour of jumpsuits at the infamous prison.

Source: Egypt Independent November 29, 2017 08:15 UTC