Al-Qaeda lures young impressionable Saudi recruits and then controls them with threats of jail and torture by security forces if they desert, according to two captured recruits speaking on state television.
In a programme called Special Facts from Inside the Cellwhich aired late last night, Khaled al-Farraj and Abdulrahman al-Roshoud said militants used heavy psychological pressure to win over and maintain the loyalty of their foot-soldiers.
"The first time I entered the door I felt danger around me. I felt sorry for others who would enter. I was afraid for those who were recruited," said Mr Roshoud, believed to be related to one of Saudi Arabia's most wanted militants.
Neither Roshoud nor Farraj are on the most wanted list of 26 militants, most of whom have been killed or captured. The programme did not give any details of their cases.
The programme marked the latest government media offensive to drain public support for militants who have waged a 17-month campaign of violence in the birthplace of Islam. More than 150 people, half of them foreigners, have been killed.
It mixed confessions from the two men with graphic pictures of mangled cars, blown out buildings and bloodied bodies, taken at the scene of attacks in Saudi Arabia blamed on supporters of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Young men, mostly aged around 20, were recruited "because they do not have sufficient knowledge of Sharia (Islamic law) or the wisdom to tell right from wrong," Mr Roshoud said.
Farraj said as a first step a recruit might be asked to rent a car or a flat in his name for a militant cell.
"The members of the cell then tell him: 'That's it. You're involved, you're a member of this cell. Either carry on with us or you are in danger of being arrested or killed'."