How to rehabilitate terrorists?

Arrested terrorists at home and those, who returned from war zones in Syria and Iraq, are posing one of three major challenges facing the Egyptian state.

First challenge:

Arrested terrorists linked to ISIS and Al-Qaeda would find prisons a suitable environment for communicating with and brainwashing cellmates belonging to different terrorist groups, such as Muslim Brotherhood’s Hasm and the Revolution Flag. Criminals happened to be dumped in the same place also fall prey to notorious terrorists adopting ideologies of ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

Second challenge:

Imprisoned terrorists would adopt plans to open channels of communication with leaders and elements of terrorists outside the country. Investigations into the assassination attempt against ex-President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa revealed that imprisoned leaders of Jamaa Islamiya turned their cell into an operation room, from which they clandestinely communicated with their elements in Sudan and Ethiopia to kill the ex-President during his visit to Ethiopia to take part in the summit of the Organisation of African Unity in 1995.

Third challenge:

Terrorists at large are compared to ticking time-bombd, which would explode the moment the country plunged into a state of instability. In the meantime, Jihadists fighting in Syria, Iraq and Libya are quarried from fundamentalists and extremists, who are remaining out of the reach of the security authorities.

Parallel counteract:

These three major challenges should prompt a two-pronged counteract. On the one hand, the efficiency and capabilities of the security authorities should be upgraded and developed to launch more effective counterterrorism strategy. On the other hand, high-profile programmes should be drawn up for rehabilitating Jihadists returning from war zones abroad, and help reintegrate them into society.

However, these strategies would produce concrete results only when security officials and experts decode clandestine plans terrorist organisations seek to recruit young people.

It has been revealed that terrorist groups are adopting five recruitment process steps. They are: Ending injustice, dream of Muslim caliphate, vengeance, inflicting trauma and exploitation of poverty.

Egyptian experience

Over the past two decades of the last century, the Egyptian state had been engaged in violent confrontations with Jamaa Islamiya and Al-Jihad. The cycle of violence in Egypt escalated after these two militant groups pledged loyalty to Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. As a result, in 1981, they attacked the Security Department in the Upper Egyptian city of Assiut, killing 118 officers and policemen.

Hitting again, the two groups in 1997 brutally killed about 57 tourists from different nationalities in Luxor. Luxor attack prompted the Egyptian security authorities to reevaluate their security strategies and examine alternatives, which could run successfully parallel to tough security measures.

Accordingly, prisons were turned to platforms for ‘Intellectual Reviews’, in which elements and leaders of Jamaa Islamiya and Al-Jihad took part. The success of this anti-terror bloodless weapon is attributed to Gen. Ahmed Ra’fat, who was the deputy chief of the former State Security Investigation (now the National Security). Ra’fat, who died in 2010, was responsible for the SSI’s religious files. His initiative is widely regarded as a turning point in the history of terrorism in Egypt. Ra’fat-pioneered rehabilitation in the last decade of the 20^th century merits analysis and reexamination to see whether it suits the current situation.

Stop Violence Initiative

It was Jamaa Islamiya, which in July 1997 called for a halt to violence.  The peace initiative was announced by Mohamed Abdelalaim, one of its leaders, during a military court hearing in Cairo. It was Abdelalim’s initiative, which threw the door open to the Intellectual Revision and Rehabilitation.

However, things did not run smoothly. The initiative instigated suspicions and warnings that Jamaa Islamiya was manouevering to survive. The situation got worse after a tragic massacre against tourists in Luxor on November 17, 1997. Pioneers of the Intellectual Revision and Rehabilitation were under pressure to balk. 

Chief negotiator

Regardless of increasing pressure to relinquish the idea, Gen. Ahmed Ra’fat, aka Haj Mostafa Refaat, firmly decided to pursue the exceptional stop-violence strategy.   Despite the fury caused in society over the Luxor massacre, Gen. Ra’fat managed to obtain the green light from his bosses to continue and communicate with decision-makers of Jamaa Islamiya in prison.

Gen. Ra’fat’s five-year constructive negotiations and brainstorming dialogue produced four books in February 2002. They are “Religious Vision”, “Realistic Theory”, “Prohibition of Radicalised Faith, Which Condemns Muslims as Blasphemous” and “Advice and Explanation on Correct Religious Concepts”.

The co-authors of the 600-page Quartet were high-profile leaders of Jamaa Islamiya. They included Karam Zohdi, Nageh Ibrahim, Essam Derbala, Assem Abdel-Maguid, Osama Hafez, Fouad el-Dawalibi and Hamdi Abdel-Rahman; the latter was assigned to announce the conclusions of the Intellectual Revision to the public. The Quartet elaborated religious rules, which urge Muslims to renounce violence. The Quartet also rebutted misinterpretation and outrageous explanation of the religious text, which had been adopted by Jamaa Islamiya as its charter.

The Quartet also denounced the contents of the book “The Charter of the Islamic Work”, which was published in 1979 (the document was co-written by three of the Quartet’s co-authors, Abedl-Maguid, Derbala and Ibrahim). The three authors were the founders of the Jihadist group in the two universities of Menia and Cairo in the 1970s of the last century.

Their campaign echoed successfully in different universities across the country, especially after it attracted the attention of Salah Hasehm, Karam Zohdi, Osama Hafez and Mohamed Shawki el-Islamboli. 

Successful steps

The Intellectual Revision underwent five stages: confidence-building, Winning the State Support, Negotiation tactics, State Positive Move, Rehabilitation and Reintegration.

Confidence-building

This stage was the springboard for constructive dialogue and negotiation. Due to its fundamental importance, Gen. Ra’fat selected a high-level qualified and smart-minded team of negotiators. They were also equipped with good knowledge of the charters and ideologies of militant groups.

Eulogising Gen. Ra’fat, Dr. Nageh Ibrahim said that the late general pioneered the Egyptian security authorities to appreciate the culture of dialogue. The former Jihadist asserted that Gen. Ra’fat’s confidence-building initiative had helped the Egyptian state to settle many thorny and complicated disputes over religious issues. “Gen. Ra’fat was an incredible man,” wrote Dr. Ibrahim. “He was very kind to the poor and saved the families of the detainees from unbearable sufferings and difficulties,” he said.

According to Dr. Ibrahim, the late security general was the first to help Islamists preserve their dignity and human rights in prison. “Moreover,” the Jamaa Islamiya’s co-founder continued, “Gen. Ra’fat is given credit for persuading the government to release Islamist detainees.” The physician also remembered Gen. Ra’fat for placing trust and confidence in Islamists that they would honour their pledges upon their release. “Gen. Ra’fat was the first security official, who showed increasing interest in the welfare of the detainees in prison and after they were set free,” said Dr. Ibrahim.

2-Winning the State Support

Determined to achieve his goals at any costs, Gen. Ra’fat knocked at the door of powerful security officials, appealing for giving him official permission to communicate with leading figures of Jamaa Islamiya and build mutual confidence. 

3- Negotiation strategy

Together with powerful men of Jamaa Islamiya, Gen. Ra’fat drew up a plan to walk simultaneously down two parallel roads. On the one hand, Gen. Ra’fat provided a suitable environment in prison for inter-Jamaa Islamiya constructive dialogue. On the other hand, he arranged a series of meetings between its leaders, and a high-profile and carefully-selected team of security experts and police officers, who had immense knowledge of religious issues and related disputable areas.   

Leaders of Jamaa Islamiya, who sincerely adopted the stop-violence initiative, were allowed to visit prisons across the country and open constructive discussions with detained colleagues.  

The negotiation strategy produced concrete results after five years. In his comments, Dr. Ibrahim said: “After unleashing the initiative, members of Jamaa Islamiya were moved to one prison to be isolated from Al-Jihad members and Salafis, who attacked the initiative and its pioneers.”

4-The State Positive Move

The success of the five-year dialogue encouraged the Egyptian state to adopt positive steps, which included the release of a big number of Jamaa Islamiya’s members and leaders; and the publication of the Quartet.

5-Rehabilitation and reintegration

This was considered the most important stage, in which the government, in collaboration with the security authorities, collaborated to help integrate former militants and extremists with society. This ambition was achieved when former militants had their economic, financial and social conditions improved. They were also helped to overcome fears that people would not welcome their return to the public life.

According to the state-sponsored economic and financial incentives, former militants and extremists were offered government and private jobs; others were financially supported to launch their own businesses. Being a physician, Ibrahim was helped to open a medical clinic.

Revival of the Intellectual Revision

The return of ISIS-linked Jihadists from war zones in Iraq, Syria and Libya has prompted voices to call for the revival of the successful Intellectual Revision and Rehabilitation of the 1990s of the last century.  However, the experience would run into some sort of difficulties in Greater Cairo and Delta towns and villages, in which most of the MB’s offshoots, such as Hasm, Revolution Flag, etc., are active.  Two reasons merit attention in this regard:  

On the one hand, the influence of the MB’s ideology comes second to that of the interests its members are keen to serve and preserve. On the other hand, members of the MB’s offshoots keenly preserve the kinship they have with the parent group.  

Therefore, the revival of the Intellectual Revision and Rehabilitation would produce fruits if it offers profitable alternatives, which could persuade these militants to stop their dependence on the parent group entirely. Also, the MB-linked prisoners should be separated and distributed to different cells to deny them the family life they are used to.

There were press reports about intellectual revisions, which unfolded in 2017 and early this year to rehabilitate the MB’s elements in prison. However, these reports proved to be incorrect and inaccurate. On the one hand, they were unilateral—not systematic—initiatives. The second reason in this respect is that the state institutions and experts concerned are mistaking reconciliation for rehabilitation and reintegration.