I'm really TRYING to stay possitive....

Hizb ut-Tahrir in America:Lessons from Great Britain


http://www.rightsidenews.com/2010071911 ... itain.html

SUNDAY, 18 JULY 2010 20:00

Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), a transnational Islamist movement described as a "conveyor belt" for jihadist terror, is preparing to play a much more active role in recruiting American Muslims. Although the cancellation of HT's U.S. Khilafah Conference this month was a setback, the group is likely to persist in its American recruitment efforts because it is committed to its ultimate mission: establishing an international Islamic caliphate (Khilafah).

The organization's activities in Great Britain - perhaps its leading Western hub - may offer a clue as to the group's intentions in the United States.

In an interview, former Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain member Ghaffar Hussain notes that HT doctrine specifies three stages of recruitment: Stage One, in which the group focuses on propaganda and recruiting new members; Stage Two, in which the party interacts with the larger Muslim community; and Stage Three, when it tries to take power.

Hussain believes Hizb ut-Tahrir in America is about to enter the second stage. That's where HT was in Great Britain back in 1993, when Hussain, then a teenager, was caught up in a wave of activism.

He remembers being shown "snuff videos" of Bosnian Muslim atrocity victims in the former Yugoslavia, among them pregnant women being murdered by Serbian forces. "You can't help having a reaction to that," he told the Investigative Project on Terrorism. "No one was offering a counter-version of history, so I bought into it."

Eventually, Hussain drifted away from Hizb ut-Tahrir, only to move back into its orbit while attending college in London around the time of 9/11. Shortly after those attacks, he gravitated toward a number of "far-left, socialist" parties, but retained his connection with Islamist radicals as well. Only after the July 7, 2005 subway bombings did Hussain make a clean break with radical Islam. Today, he is director of outreach and training for the Quilliam Foundation - a research organization that works to educate the public about the dangers of Islamism.

Although Hizb ut-Tahrir claims it does not support violence, its alumni include terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Musab Zarqawi. The organization has endorsed plane hijackings and the mass killings of non-Muslims to advance its long-term goal.

For example, HT has suggested that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal could be used as a weapon against the United States, said Houriya Ahmed, a research fellow with the Centre for Social Cohesion, a British organization that monitors radical Islamist activity.