Saudi Fathers Condemn Their Terrorist Sons

(Dubai) From The Straits Times (free reg.) comes the report that Saudi Arabia has launched a campaign on television where fathers of terrorists are interviewed condemning their sons for being terrorists. The goal is to undermine support for the terrorist groups.

In a programme called A Pause With The Parents, shown on state television on Saturday, emotional accounts were narrated by the fathers of five militants as part of the Saudi royal family's campaign against militants who have carried out several attacks against Westerners inside the kingdom and abroad.

'I contacted the authorities immediately when I knew he was wanted,' Mr Ahmed Jamaan al-Zahrani said of his son Faris, No. 12 on the list of Saudi Arabia's 26 most-wanted terror suspects before he was captured in August.

'He has a wife and children whom he should have been taking care of better, rather than staying in Afghanistan,' he said.

The father of the former top militant on the list, Abdulaziz Issa Abdul-Mohsin Al-Moqrin, who was killed in a June 19 shoot-out after the Al-Qaeda cell that he led decapitated an American hostage, said he had vowed to take down his son himself.

The programme, viewed via satellite in Dubai, played on Islam's high regard for honouring parents - stressing that disobeying them is almost equated with apostasy.

Since al-Qaeda has vowed to topple the Saudi royal family and change the country to its own Islamic government, the Saudi royals are trying hard to disrupt their ability to recruit in the region. And it should be noted that there are many devastated families in Saudi Arabia who have lost their sons to terrorism. Many young men leave their families to fight with al-Qaeda and never return.

It's hard to predict if there will be any substantive result from the programming, but it does demonstrate that there is no complete unity in Muslim opinion.