Pakistan Rehabilitating Militants

Pakistanis detained in Afghanistan are handed over to security agencies at Torkhum border. (IOL Photo)

"We have hired the services of some veteran psychologists and ulema (scholars) to treat these brain-washed people," an Interior Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The task has been assigned to the Crisis Management Cell of the Interior Ministry, the official said.

"They (psychologists and ulema) will meet these militants on regular basis in order to judge their mental stage. The psychologists will try to figure out the reasons which led these people to choose the path of militancy so that they could be treated properly," the official added.

"The ulema in the light of Qur`an and Sunnah will try to persuade theses militants to quit the path of terrorism, which has earned a bad name to Islam," the official said.

The militants, whose names will not be disclosed for security reasons, have either been arrested by the Pakistani security agencies, or handed over by the Afghan and US governments after the ouster of Taliban in 2001. They are suspected of being associated with Al-Qaeda, Taliban or other outlawed militant organizations.

They include some 52 former Guantanamo bay prisoners, who have been handed over to Pakistan during the last two years after they were found not guilty by the American interrogators.

The Interior Ministry official said that several of the militants had been behind the bars for last five to six years without any indictment.

"In case of official indictment, the prosecution cannot not prove cases against them," the official said.

"What we can prove against them is the violation of border laws."

Hearts and Minds

Since the militants at issue have not been in touch with their spiritual leaders for quite a while, the government is likely to win the battle for their hearts and minds, the Interior Ministry official said.

He said it would be possible to "change their hearts and minds" through counter propaganda and education.

"We are using a diamond cuts a diamond policy as these militants have been misled by so-called religious scholars," he said.

"And we are going to convert them through true and moderate religious education."

The official noted that a special education program was being chalked out under the guidance of psychologists and scholars for the militants.

Analysts believe the new government approach was driven by a series of bombings that shocked the country last month.

Intelligence officials had told IOL that investigators were examining a link between the bombings and a Taliban statement that hundreds of suicide bombers were ready to attack vital places in the country.

On Saturday, militants used explosives to blow a large hole in one of Pakistan's biggest gas pipelines, cutting off supplies to the main southwestern city of Quetta, police said.

Also today, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has suspended operations in a large area of north-western Pakistan after an overnight bomb attack.

No one was hurt but several cars were damaged after an explosive device was lobbed into the car park of the building in Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province.

Last month a suicide bomber blew himself up in Peshawar killing 15 people including seven police.

Root Causes

But security and defense experts, however, were skeptical about the success of the government rehabilitation program, saying authorities should address the root causes of terror and terrorism.

"I don’t think that such artificial plans can yield any positive results. The exercise will turn out to be waste of time only," Shamim Akhtar, a senior defense and security analyst, told IOL.

"How ironic that the government wants to know the reasons leading the people to militancy. This is an open secret. Even a common citizen knows that," he added.

He explained: "America and its allies have let loose a reign of terror against Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Kashmir, and that is the only reason which is leading our youths to extremism."

Intelligence sources told IOL militants who were released from the notorious US-run Guantanamo prison in Cuba are mentally unstable, owing to maltreatment by US guards.

"They harbor sheer bitterness and retaliatory feelings for America," one intelligence official told IOL.

Akhtar said the US administration is reaping what it has sown.

"If you bomb and kill the innocent citizens, including children and women in the name of so-called war on terror then what do you expect in return? Do America and its allies expect flowers from Muslim youths in return?" wondered Akhtar.

He went on: "If a Palestinian suicide bomber blows himself up and kills some Jews that its is terrorism in the eyes of America, but when Israeli jets indiscriminately pound civilian population and kill innocent children and women, then it is not terrorism but the Zionist state has the right to defense."

He warned that frustrated and vulnerable Muslim youths will take justice into their own hands if they feel that the West is doing injustice to their fellow Muslims.

Hamid Mir, a veteran Pakistani journalist, a greed that the US administration must first change its policies in the Muslim world to combat terrorism and extremism.

"What a Pakistani psychiatrics could teach Abdullah Mehsud who knows only that American jets pound and kill innocent children and women in his area," Mir said.

He was referring to the leader of a Taliban group operating in the country’s northern tribal belt.

Mir said the Guantanamo memoirs published by former Taliban envoy to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef and Abdul Raheem Muslim Dost, who spent one and a half years at the X-ray camp, spelled the beans of the appalling detention conditions of prisoners there.

"When one reads in the books of Mullah Zaeef and Muslim Dost that American troops desecrate Holy Qur`an, undress the prisoners, and prevent them from offering prayers, what would he think about America?" Mir said.

Ishtiaq Ahmad, a senior security and strategic analyst, agreed that the government plan would prove futile.

"I don’t know who has advised the government to do so. In my opinion it would be much better if (US President) George Bush and (UK Prime Minister) Tony Blair were referred to these psychiatrics," laughing Ahmad said.

"It is impossible for Muslim youths in general to turn a blind eye towards injustices in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Kashmir. If USA, and its allies really want to contain the growing retaliatory sentiments among Muslim youths, they have to dispense justice," he added.