Photo by: APLibya releases ‘rehabilitated’ Islamists
By ADAM GONN / THE MEDIA LINE
24/03/2010 16:43
Libya releases over 200 members of a terror group following their completion of a reconciliation program.
“The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group is no longer a threat,” Hartwell added, pointing out that anyone who is released is kept under close surveillance. “There have been sporadic releases and there have not been any attacks on the government so in that sense it has been a success.”Counter-terrorism expert Claude Moniquet said that in addition to Libya and Saudi, both Algeria and Morocco have their own reconciliation programs, but their success has been limited.
“I don’t think it’s working,” Moniquet told The Media Line. “In Morocco there has been a reconciliation program since the bombing attempts in Casablanca May 2003, after which there were arrests and people sent to jail. But the same people tried to blow themselves up again in 2008.”
“If you take Algeria, there has been a program in action for the last seven or eight years and it does not work there either,” he said. ”[While] some people are serious and have left the program. The security service is arresting people who are back in terrorism.”
The Algerian government has been encouraging former terrorists to lay down their arms and reintegrate into society but thousands of former terrorists in Algeria claim they are being barred from employment in the public sector and discriminated against because of their background.
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