Libya's rehabilitation program for jihadis has led to the release of 37 terrorists, including Nasser Tailamoun, Osama bin Laden's driver.For more than a year the Kadhafi Foundation initiative has arranged
According to a Kadhafi Foundation spokesman, "these people had completed their rehabilitation program, which was aimed at getting the prisoners to renounce violence and reintegrate them into Libyan society
Former LIFG leader Khaled Cherif invited the freed convicts "to be of use to themselves, their families and
This isn't the first time that LIFG jihadis have been released under the program. In March, Libya freed 214 jailed
"[The] successful Libyan experiment", former LIFG media section chief Noman Benotman told London-based Asharq Alawsat newspaper on September 2nd, "proved highly efficient in distancing Islamists from dens of evil".
Not everyone is buying into this outlook. "Some Arab regimes realised the price they had to pay in return for the truce with Islamist groups," said Monia Ferjani, an expert in Islamism.
"It is no secret that fundamentalist movements changed their techniques at the current stage, to the point that some went so far as to label them 'Fundamentalism Light, which is meant to promote Islamism behind a humane guise." she added.
These "neo-fundamentalists", as she calls them, "no longer fight man-made laws with God-revealed Sharia" but instead "defend the Sharia using man-made laws. The release decision in Libya is a living example of that."
| Moving their efforts from the hard jihad of the sword to the soft jihad of the law. The same objective, but less dangerous to innocent bystanders in the short term. |