A big transition

IT is hard to imagine how someone changes the course of their life — more so when that person is a top jihadist leader on the world’s most-wanted terrorist lists and admits that taking the militant path had been a mistake. That he follows up this ostensible change of heart by working to reintegrate former militants into society comes across as practically bizarre.

This is not a tale from war-torn Syria, where militant leaders are rethinking their roles, nor is it from East Asia, where...