Saudi interrogators are not known for their bedside manner at interrogations. They are more widely known for beheadings. But, they've changed their tune when it comes to questioning Al Qaeda members:

There's a plan behind all this.

Over time, the clerics position the prisoners to repent and renounce their past allegiance to the network established by the Saudi-born fugitive bin Laden. Then traditional interrogators are brought in to question the prisoners and learn tactical information, officials said. "We have learned that what drove them into this cult, and what causes them to cooperate, is religion," said one senior Saudi official involved in intelligence work.

Saudi interrogators often bring clerics and a Quran to their prison interviews to establish a religious connection, a technique that has proved successful in eliciting information from terrorist suspects and reorienting them to less violent religious beliefs.

The tactic, similar to the way cult deprogrammers work in the United States, has impressed American counterparts enough that Saudi intelligence was permitted to use some of the principles on their citizens being held at the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Saudi officials said. The tactic is getting results.

The religious reorientation is markedly different from some hard-core interrogation tactics that can use sleep deprivation, alternate rewards and punishment and other methods to elicit information.

Here's how it works: First, the Saudis identify midlevel and low-level al-Qaida prisoners who were attracted to Osama bin Laden's network through a perversion of Islam.

Then, shortly after these al-Qaida prisoners are taken into custody, Saudi interrogators send in a cleric who appears to espouse militant Islamic views to help build a personal bond with the young men and open a dialogue based on Islam, the officials said.

Once we connect with them, the interrogators slowly hand them over to a more moderate cleric, who sits with them and goes over what the Quran says and discusses what the traditions of the prophet are," one Saudi official explained.

Experts say the religious reprogramming tactic works well as a carrot in a society that also threatens a harsh stick - Islamic trials followed by swift, public beheadings of some criminals. It has developed over decades as the Saudis have looked for ways to rehabilitate their citizens.