FOX News: Islamic Group Hizb ut-Tahrir Holds Conference In Chicago - 07/19/09 حِزْبُ التَحْرِير
The theme of the conference is the Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam.
Indeed, in his Cairo speech Obama viewed himself as a champion of Islam opposed to the colonial sins of Western nations. While Obama is supervising the fall of American capitalism he is dedicated to advancing the aims of global Islam. He stated:
"I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."
In fact, the worldwide Hizb ut-Tahrir organization traces its roots in opposition to the West since the fall of the last Caliphate after WW I.
In Australia, the group feels that it has been discriminated against since WW I. The group feels the need to revive a militaristic and forceful response against what it feels is an attack on Islam.
According the group's description of its mission in Australia:
Rajab is the month in which the journey of al-Isra wal-Miraj occurred, the battle of Tabuk was fought, and the month in which Salahudeen liberated Al-Quds. But Rajab is also the month in which the Khilafah was destroyed. In each of these instances of history lie great lessons for Muslims. It is these lessons, and their relevance to contemporary revivalist efforts, that will be explored in this years campaign.
The U.S. is facing the rise of worldwide Islamofascism. Fox News with Eric Shawn discusses the stealth Jihad of Hizb Ut-Tahrir--a shariah-supremacist group meeting at the Chicago Hilton. The name of the group means The Islamic Liberation Party and the theme of the conference is "The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam". James Lafferty, from the Center for Security Policy, talks about the danger posed by this Islamic group.
Dr. Zuhdi Jasser condemns the jihadist recruiting organization and calls upon American Muslim organizations to specifically condemn the Islamofascism of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
In Britain the group has considered any change or accommodation in Islam as an attack on the religion and entails forcing the faith to be a secular force alone.
Bill Roggio of the Long War Journal has summarized activities of the group since 2005.
Red-on-Red
The assault of radical British politician George Galloway highlights the dangers of attempting to co-opt the forces of radical Islam. George Galloway, a former Minister of Parliament, advocate of Palestinian terrorism and supporter of Saddam Hussein has attempted to woo the Muslim vote by campaigning on anti American and anti Blair platforms. But this is not enough to placate some of the more extreme elements of the Islamists who would normally be thought to support his anti-Western stance on the Middle East:
"I was meeting people who live in the flats. Hizb-ut-Tahrir suddenly filled the room and blocked the door. I tried speaking calmly. They then said I was parading as a false prophet and served a sentence of death on me. They were claiming I was representing myself as a false deity and for this apostasy I would be sentenced to the gallows… They said they were setting up the gallows for me. Thank God my daughter was not with me. She was in the car outside. Otherwise there would have been nobody to call the police. The police saved my life."
The Heritage Foundation has an excellent primer on Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation). Heritage documents the background of the party leadership and its interconnectivity to radical Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PLO, and Saudi Arabian Wahhabis:
Since its inception in 1952 in Jordanian-occupied East Jerusalem, Hizb has gained tens of thousands of followers from London to Lahore. From its beginning, [Hizb ut-Tahrir founder] an-Nabhani's organization was influenced by the rabid anti-Semitism propagated by Sheikh Hajj Amin Al-Housseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was a major Nazi war collaborator.
An-Nabhani, who was serving at the time on the Islamic appellate court in Jerusalem, was an associate and contemporary of Hajj Amin's. He also drew on the organizational principles of Marxism-Leninism, which were quite well-known among the middle- and upper-class Arabs in British Mandate Palestine. Khaled Hassan, one of the founders of the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was also among the founders of Hizb ut-Tahrir, as was Sheikh Asaad Tahmimi, who became Islamic Jihad's spiritual leader. Hizb supported the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991 and backs the Islamic Salvation Front of Algeria, a radical movement on the U.S. State Department's terrorism list.
An-Nabhani was also member of the radical Islamic Brotherhood (Al Ihwan al-Muslimeen), a secretive international fundamentalist organization founded in Egypt in 1928, which spread throughout the Islamic world and preaches the establishment of a Caliphate. He joined the Brotherhood while studying in Cairo's Al-Azhar University but later left the Brotherhood because he considered it too soft. It is likely that Hizb was supported initially by the Saudi-based radical Islamist Wahhabi movement, although the extent to which that support continues today is unclear.
Global Security clearly explains the anti-democratic nature of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which makes the actions of the British Islamists all too understandable.
Unlike similar Islamic groups, the radical Sunni Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir recruits new members irrespective of differences among the various tendencies within Islam. Unlike more traditional Islamic parties, it is supranational and refuses to be involved in local politics. Therefore, it is impossible for regional leaders to co-opt the group, as happened with the former Islamic opposition in Tajikistan. Hizb ut-Tahrir is not a political party in the sense that it does not want to participate in national politics. It does not want to go for elections. It does not want to be part of any coalition government.
While Hizb ut-Tahrir’s modus operandi has been well documented, Mr. Galloway still insists on trying to engage in political debate with the group’s leader, offering democratic solutions to a political movement whose express intent is the destruction of democracy, and a return to the rule of a Caliphs; “Mr Galloway, who is due to share a platform with the leader of Hizb-ut-Tahrir on Saturday at a debate on Muslims and politics, said he was being targeted because he offered a democratic solution to Muslims.” At the risk of being childish, the only response to Mr. Galloway's incredulousness is "duh".
Colt refers to the attack on Mr. Galloway as a blue-on-blue incident, but as the actions of groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and other anti-democratic forces demonstrates, the “enemy of my enemy” isn’t necessarily a friend when both parties are Western. Mr. Galloway's experience was not an isolated incident of radical Muslims expressing their distaste for democratic institutions. Disciples of the radical Islamist and al Qaeda linked Omar Bakri Mohammed also expressed their disgust for democracy:
Last night's incident came hours after another group of Muslim men disrupted a general election media meeting of the Muslim Council of Britain. A group thought to be followers of cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed attacked the Council, claiming no one should vote in the election.
It is clear that major weaknesses of democratic societies are the fear and unwillingness to address dark forces such as Hizb ut-Tahrir or Omar Bakri Mohammed within their societies. Socialists and multiculturalists such as George Galloway work to co-opt these organizations while knowing their inherent disgust for the very societies that give them the freedoms of speech and assembly not afforded them in their countries of origin. These events highlight the importance of programs such as “Operation Muslim World Outreach” and the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative, as well as the necessity of engagement in Central Asia, a stronghold of Hizb ut-Tahrir [corrected], and the shortcomings of the reliance on lawfare in dealing with radical Islam. Like it or not, this war is bigger than just al Qaeda, it is a struggle against radical Islam and the antidemocratic forces that succor these uncivilized and unenlightened practices.
Posted by Bill Roggio on April 21, 2005
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