Turning the Taliban: A Rare Visit to Deradicalization Center in Pakistan

[Hurter]

F**K human rights, where are they when India kills Kashmirs. These kind of groups are one of the aiders to rented terrorists & protector.

Asma Jahangir... Human Right ki Maaa

 

[rockstar08]

My personal opinion is, only those who surrender should be put in these centres, or those who were at the very bottom of the food chain and were just fighting or operating as hostages to the TTP.

All others caught fighting should be killed, no question.

first time you have said something right
agreed with the bold part

 

[Jango]

first time you have said something right
agreed with the bold part

Main to hamesha say yehi bolta tha mere bhai!

 

[Irfan Baloch]

The Saudi program included (I'm not sure it's still in operation) Playstations, table tennis, teaching manual skills and providing participants with a car and sometimes a wife. Regardless of such inducements, roughly 20% (some say 12%) returned to terrorism.

I'm not sure but I think the Saudi program was voluntary in which case it's difficult to say what difference it made, for these are men who already were disposed towards abandoning terror as their way in life.

I also am not sure why you believe the influence of NGOs is automatically a positive one. The Israeli experience is that some NGOs tend to encourage terror and finance conflict more than anything else.

thanks for your observations
first I cant speak for the Saudis so I have no comments re their program

just to clarify, why I mentioned the regular visits of NGO's and western officials is because they will see that there is nothing nefarious or dark being indoctrinated among these "reformed" taliban footmen. there are individuals from the west who are permanent residents near such rehabilitation centres and they will shout foul if there is anything like what you suggested earlier. like I responded to another poster, these guys are those that are not involved in any heinous crimes and are mostly those who joined the ranks of taliban out of compulsion or tribal code.

people who are running similar programs in Afghanistan and ourselves here face a challenge to show a viable and alternate route to "earning money" rather than growing opium or serving as a footman for whatever "rightful" or "wrongful" cause.
these guys are very resilient, very dedicated and hard working and are acknowledged for their labour across the globe by their recruiters.

so fingers crossed because the alternative is not very attractive.

 

[Mabs]

byWAJAHAT S. KHAN
NEWS
AUG 1 2015, 7:24 AM ET

BARA, Pakistan — The whitewashed mansion once housed a millionaire — but these days its marbled halls are home to a military experiment on returning former Taliban fighters to mainstream society.

The deradicalization center in war-torn Bara resembles a typical elite boarding school: there's a library, dormitory, canteen, recess and different sports teams. Its students are a select few — but weren't chosen for their academic strengths.


Former Taliban fighters attend a physics class. Wajahat S. Khan / NBC News
NBC News was granted access to one of the Pakistani military's three deradicalization centers in Bara — a critical component in the nation's war against terrorism. Pakistan's military has been accused by human-rights groups of abusing or even killing suspects in its custody.

At the Bara Center in Pakistan's unruly northwest nearly 400 former Taliban fighters spend 18-hour days under guard, supervised by military officers and instructed by specially-hired tutors. In addition to praying and studying Islamic history, they're learning skills like tailoring, welding furniture and repairing cell phones — plus shooting hoops and even jamming on the flute.

As morning assembly ended with prayers for Pakistan and forgiveness, students in traditional white formal attire and black waistcoats walked single file to their classes without talking under the watchful eye of armored soldiers with weapons drawn.

These students are a rare breed: militants who've opted to lay down their arms and surrender, rather than fight or die in battle against the Pakistani military.

Classroom after classroom of former militants snap to attention military-style as Brigadier Muhammad Khalid comes to inspect their progress.

Khalid — the deputy inspector general of the Frontier Corps, which manages Khyber's three deradicalization centers — stressed the challenges of the process.

"It's not easy," Khalid added. "These men didn't go through conditioning at an internment center. They were fighting us one or two weeks before they were inducted here for deradicalization."

The program is tightly scheduled and incorporates feedback from the students on what they would like to learn, Khalid said.


Former Taliban militants pray during morning assembly at a deradicalization center in Bara, Pakistan. Wajahat S. Khan / NBC News
"We split up their day according to adult literacy, vocational training, sports, drug rehabilitation and religious studies," he said. "And we only release them when our psychologists say so."

Khalid said the military hopes for a trickle-down effect.

"From the individual, the hope is that this effort is going to deradicalize the family, then from the family to the community, then from the community to the society," Khalid said.

Citing security concerns, Pakistan's military would not grant NBC News individual access to any of the students.

"They have a lot of enemies out there who are angry at them for abandoning their mission and becoming respectful civilians again," Khalid explained. "The safety of their families is at stake if their identity is revealed."

Students approached by NBC News without military supervision were apprehensive about talking: one 16-year-old disclosed he had belonged to the fierce Sipah-Afridi tribe that forms the backbone of the Lashkar-e-Islam militant group, while another student simply whispered that he wanted to be left alone and walked off, head bowed.


Pakistan-themed models of jets, boats and houses that were made by former Taliban fighters. Wajahat S. Khan / NBC News
The three centers processed 606 students over the last year at a cost of $3.93 million — a bargain, officers say, for rebuilding lives and decreasing future threats to the nation.

"When they graduate, we try to make sure they have a job waiting for them in the cities. Their community supervisors bring them in every few weeks to make sure they are not straying off," Khalid said. "We give them a stipend, too. Why? Because we are rebuilding a social fabric here destroyed by militancy, drugs and crime."

The success of the programs is of critical importance to Pakistan's military, according to an intelligence official.

"We can't afford a Guantanamo, or a Abu Ghraib," the official said, requesting anonymity. "These guys were conditioned to think we were foreigners, 'kaafirs' and 'murtids' [infidels and heathens]. So, we have to condition them back... The counterinsurgency in Pakistan has to conducted for Pakistanis, by Pakistanis."

Turning the Taliban: A Rare Visit to Deradicalization Center in Pakistan - NBC News

For the record, this is what Imran Khan means when he says 'talk to the Taliban'. Talk to the ones who are willing to lay down arms and assimilate back into the society and fight the rest. Divide and rule. I don't know why people make such a big fuss about it.

 

[Godman]

This is like brainwashing the brainwashed to get rid of the first brainwashing

 

[Solomon2]

...I mentioned the regular visits of NGO's and western officials is because they will see that there is nothing nefarious or dark being indoctrinated among these "reformed" taliban footmen...people who are running similar programs in Afghanistan and ourselves here face a challenge -

Have you contacted Turkish officials about deradicalization programs in Turkey?

 

[Dubious]

Have you contacted Turkish officials about deradicalization programs in Turkey?

Shouldnt you be doing that since you are the one who was equating them so the burden to proof lies on you!

 

[Solomon2]

Shouldnt you be doing that since you are the one who was equating them so the burden to proof lies on you!

I'm comparing. Comparing is not the same as equating.

I don't have the professional contacts that IB seems to have, which is why I'm asking him.

You're being kind of peculiar about all this. What's your beef?

 

[Dubious]

Comparing

Comparing is done when something exists ...No data exists coz its 1st time Pakistan is doing it...

Hence it falls into equating category!

You're being kind of peculiar about all this. What's your beef?

No peculiar...I am just pointing out the obvious!