IHT
By Hassan M. Fattah
Friday, July 20, 2007
TRIPOLI, Lebanon: There was a time when Omar Bakri Mohammed embodied every stereotype of the jihadi extremist. From his perch in London, he threw around words like "kafir" - infidel - to describe Christians and Jews and openly praised the bombers of Sept. 11, 2001.
But sitting recently in his new library overlooking Mount Lebanon in this northern city, with a bloody battle raging between the Lebanese Army and the Qaeda-inspired Fatah al Islam at a Palestinian refugee camp a few kilometers away, Bakri presented himself as a changed man. Whether the shift is as meaningful as he asserts is an open question.
He speaks of peace, decrying the unnecessary use of violence and emphasizing the sanctity of life.
The death of innocents, he says, has to be curtailed.
"I want to support Muslims by saving their blood and their life," Bakri said, as he began outlining his efforts to help negotiate a settlement to the confrontation in the camp. "My job is to calm the fighting and to open a dialogue."
Bakri grew to infamy after the suicide bombings of London's subway system in 2005, when he and a group of other radical imams who had been preaching in mosques became lightning rods for the creeping extremism of some young British Muslims.
He had co-founded the radical group Al Muhajiroun - disbanded in 2004 - which sought to restore and expand the Muslim caliphate, an empire whose "foreign policy is to conquer the whole world by jihad," he said.
He also helped found the British branch of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a like-minded political party that seeks a more peaceful, political route to the caliphate, before falling out with the group for theological reasons, he said.
Charismatic but never afraid of acrimony, Bakri embraced controversy.
In a newspaper interview in April 2004, he warned that "a very well-organized" London-based group, Al Qaeda Europe, was "on the verge of launching a big operation." He vowed that if Western governments did not change their policies, Muslims would give them "a 9/11, day after day after day."
When the London bombings occurred, however, the whole formula changed. British authorities were no longer willing to tolerate his speech, and public outrage increased.
When he left London for Beirut two years ago, the British government banned him permanently. He had last stepped foot in Lebanon more than 30 years ago, when he escaped the civil war, he said. Now he is starting anew, insisting that it is against his beliefs to be in Britain if he cannot preach his brand of Islam.
Nonetheless, his wife and children remain there, wards of its welfare state.
Bakri was briefly arrested after arriving in Beirut but soon began working to build a network here. He initially sought to open an Islamic college but was denied a permit. The mufti of Lebanon, the highest Sunni authority in the country, was against him, he says.
He then sought to open an institute to teach Arabic to Western converts of Islam, he says. But after a brief period when many of his former students in Britain came to attend, the Lebanese authorities closed the center amid what he says was British pressure.
This year he opened a public library, equipped with computers and Islamic texts, in addition to a lecture hall where he preaches. He also travels to various mosques.
Bakri has grown more rotund, less bellicose and more tactful to those of other faiths. But he attributes that tact to the environment in Lebanon.
"What has changed about me is I now live with people who respect Islam," Bakri said, as young men trickled into his library to listen in. "They have given me big space to speak out, to speak in the media, on national TV and in newspapers."
In return, he too has shown more respect. He no longer calls the Arab Christians around him infidels. He has preached for dialogue and sought to temper the growing tide of sectarianism, he says, and has called all of his followers to eschew collecting arms. And he has instructed his small but growing band of followers to stay out of politics.
But Bakri's apparent moderation may be less a matter of change than of contrast.
Here in Tripoli, arch-conservative Sunni Muslims and extremists of all stripes operate unhindered. Inside the Palestinian camps, armed men, some of whom have returned from the insurgency in Iraq, continue to resort to violence. The siege of the nearby camp, Nahr al Bared, is only the worst of many fights. Groups like Hizb-ut-Tahrir have offices and operate freely with little trepidation.
Now Bakri calls himself simply a Salafist, differentiating himself from jihadi Salafists like Fatah al Islam who aim to build a Muslim nation even through violent means. His goal remains unchanged, but he insists he favors only peaceful means.
He says his work is easier in Lebanon because he is reaching out to Muslims born into the faith, and has to spend much less time teaching the basics.
His reputation helped him quickly build a following and ties within the community.
"I was much more active before but was less productive," he said. "Now, I have less activity but am much more productive."
Most of all, though, he does not apologize for anything in the past. Instead, Bakri says, he has been misunderstood, misquoted and harassed. He asserts there is a Western media effort against him and derides the British government for what he says is a campaign against Muslims in general.
He has also been connected to Internet postings calling on Muslims to attack other Muslims who join the armed forces.
Perhaps most surprising, he blames moderate Muslims for being the real cause of the London bombings and similar violence. Moderates, he says, are impressionable and do not learn their Islamic law from scholars. As they surf the Internet, he says, they are open to manipulation.
"How come the moderate Muslims, not Omar Bakri do this?" he demands. "Because of Sheik Google," he quips, referring to the use of the Internet to learn Islamic principles.
Nonetheless, he has been linked to numerous incendiary Internet postings, British newspapers have reported.
When his phone rang at 3 a.m. on May 20 with news of an impending showdown between the Lebanese Army and militants, the call was a testament to his newfound prominence here.
A colleague of his was frantically looking for another sheik who had been part of earlier negotiations with Fatah al Islam, warning that the group was planning to strike Lebanese forces at Nahr al Bared if they did not cease an attack on it elsewhere in Tripoli.
Hours later, Fatah al Islam attacked the army, decapitating four soldiers and killing scores of others. By day's end 23 soldiers were dead.
Bakri says that the violence was needless and that it violated Islam. He has worked to prod clerics in the area to persuade Fatah al Islam to end the confrontation.
"They keep saying the army is a force of apostates," Bakri said of Fatah al Islam. "We say, both of you, sort it out between you, but don't you dare try to apply the case of Iraq here."
Saturday, 21 July 2007
Thursday, 19 July 2007
Hizb ut-Tahrir wants a Caliphate
THE debate over Hizb ut-Tahrir has proven to be nothing more than a poorly scripted melodrama.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a global Islamic political party working to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate within the Muslim world.
Since its inception in 1953, Hizb ut-Tahrir has been subject to the severest of repression by tyrants in the Muslim world. Our members have been consistently persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and murdered.
Despite operating under the most horrendous conditions, Hizb ut-Tahrir continues to oppose all forms of tyranny and dictatorship exclusively through intellectual and political means and in fact considers violence a violation of Islamic law.
Hizb ut-Tahrir's courageous stance in mobilising public opinion in the Muslim world has earned it the universal support of Muslim masses and caused widespread consternation among its opponents.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is now being targeted in the West for three primary reasons: The party continues to courageously expose the crimes of Western governments to a global audience; it unrelentingly challenges the West's neo-liberal interventionist policies in the Muslim world and it works to present Islam as an ideological alternative to Western secular capitalism as a model of governance in the Muslim world.
Critics of Hizb ut-Tahrir are desperately seeking to suppress debate. Our opposition to the illegal state of Israel, for instance, is howled down as anti-Semitism, our displeasure at the West's foreign policy labelled subversion, our challenge to Western-backed dictators characterised as rebellion, our work to generate political awareness described as radicalisation and our call for the affairs of the Muslim world to be governed by Islam branded as extremism.
Governments have even lent sympathetic ears to opportunistic individuals parroting the established government narrative by seeking to draw spurious and unfounded links between Hizb ut-Tahrir and recent events in London and Glasgow.
In the last century, Western governments conducted a brutal and unashamedly interventionist policy in the Muslim world which wreaked havoc on local populations through military occupation, economic exploitation and political repression.
But despite the concerted effort to demonise and silence Hizb ut-Tahrir, we will continue a serious and open debate on the way forward for the Muslim world.
* Wassim Doureihi is the media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a global Islamic political party working to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate within the Muslim world.
Since its inception in 1953, Hizb ut-Tahrir has been subject to the severest of repression by tyrants in the Muslim world. Our members have been consistently persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and murdered.
Despite operating under the most horrendous conditions, Hizb ut-Tahrir continues to oppose all forms of tyranny and dictatorship exclusively through intellectual and political means and in fact considers violence a violation of Islamic law.
Hizb ut-Tahrir's courageous stance in mobilising public opinion in the Muslim world has earned it the universal support of Muslim masses and caused widespread consternation among its opponents.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is now being targeted in the West for three primary reasons: The party continues to courageously expose the crimes of Western governments to a global audience; it unrelentingly challenges the West's neo-liberal interventionist policies in the Muslim world and it works to present Islam as an ideological alternative to Western secular capitalism as a model of governance in the Muslim world.
Critics of Hizb ut-Tahrir are desperately seeking to suppress debate. Our opposition to the illegal state of Israel, for instance, is howled down as anti-Semitism, our displeasure at the West's foreign policy labelled subversion, our challenge to Western-backed dictators characterised as rebellion, our work to generate political awareness described as radicalisation and our call for the affairs of the Muslim world to be governed by Islam branded as extremism.
Governments have even lent sympathetic ears to opportunistic individuals parroting the established government narrative by seeking to draw spurious and unfounded links between Hizb ut-Tahrir and recent events in London and Glasgow.
In the last century, Western governments conducted a brutal and unashamedly interventionist policy in the Muslim world which wreaked havoc on local populations through military occupation, economic exploitation and political repression.
But despite the concerted effort to demonise and silence Hizb ut-Tahrir, we will continue a serious and open debate on the way forward for the Muslim world.
* Wassim Doureihi is the media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia
Central Asia: Hizb Ut-Tahrir Gains Support From Women
July 11, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- While female participation in political life is generally low in Central Asia, a glimpse into Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) activities suggests the group might enjoy more support among women than registered parties get.
A court in the Uzbek capital Tashkent gave suspended sentences to seven women on July 9 for their alleged membership in the banned religious group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Another Uzbek woman, found guilty of similar charges, was sentenced to three years in prison.
Women Arrested
And in neighboring Tajikistan, Mutabar Bobojonova -- a woman who lives in the northern village Isfisor -- was arrested in June on suspicion of supporting the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir.
"I think you cannot change a person by sentencing him to lengthy prison terms. Change should come from inside the person."Experts in Central Asia point out that Hizb ut-Tahrir has been trying to recruit more women in the region and that compared to other political parties -- those both officially registered and underground groups -- it has been successful on that front.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is officially banned in all Central Asian countries, though the U.S. State Department does not consider it a terrorist organization.
Top political leaders and senior officials in law-enforcement agencies in Central Asia -- especially in Uzbekistan -- have severely criticized the group, branding it a terrorist organization that threatens the stability of the whole region.
Hundreds of alleged supporters of the group have reportedly been arrested, tortured, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, according to Amnesty International, the human-rights watchdog.
Not Suspicious
Sanya Sagnaeva, a senior analyst at the regional office of the International Crisis Group in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, says that since it is deemed an illegal group it is easier for Hizb ut-Tahrir to continue with the help of female supporters because the authorities do not usually suspect women of being involved in political campaigns.
"Women's interest in this party might be linked to the fact that the party itself puts emphasis on working with women, and that is because -- according to Central Asian traditions -- there is a lower possibility of women being prosecuted [by the state]," she says.
There are no official statistics on the exact number of members in the underground group living in Central Asia.
Experts put the number of Hizb ut-Tahrir supporters in the region at up to 15,000. However, the group itself claims that it has hundreds of thousand of members and supporters, including many women.
The group says its campaign is entirely peaceful.
Islamic Caliphate
Law-enforcement agencies in Central Asia say they usually confiscate Hizb ut-Tahrir's booklets and other literature, which usually call on people to overthrow their government and create an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia.
Most of the women imprisoned for alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir membership were found guilty of distributing the leaflets and trying to recruit more members.
Ikbal Mirsaidov, an expert at the Presidential Center for International Strategic Studies in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, says that with thousands of people being arrested and imprisoned for alleged membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir over the past decade, it is inevitable that the group would find support among women.
That is because, Mirsaidov says, most of the female supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir are family members of those who have been imprisoned by authorities.
"Most of these women who have now become politically active have seen their husbands, brothers, or fathers being prosecuted for Hizb ut-Tahrir membership," she says. "This is why they are reacting to their family member's imprisonment by law-enforcement authorities."
The leader of the Social Democratic Party in Tajikistan's northern Sughd region, Dilbar Samadova, says that while government authorities claim that there are thousands of followers of Hizb ut-Tahrir operating in the country, officially registered political parties are having difficulty gaining support among the population.
Samadova says Tajiks, especially women, are becoming more indifferent to politics altogether and mistrust both the government and the opposition.
Alone And Poor
Samadova says she suspects the Hizb ut-Tahrir is taking advantage of widespread poverty and the fact that hundreds of thousands of men have left for seasonal work in Russia, leaving their wives as the head of the household and their families during their husbands' absence.
According to Samadova, Hizb ut-Tahrir -- which reportedly gets financial support from some foreign countries -- might provide money to the women in order to win their support.
"Women carry most of the burden of their family's everyday lives," she said. "The women's social and economic situation is appalling."
An Uzbek woman convicted of being a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, who did not want to give her name, said she was released from a Tajik prison under the presidential amnesty in June. She said she had been sentenced to five years in prison and lived among "convicted criminals." But despite this experience, she said her time in prison she did not change her beliefs.
"I think you cannot change a person by sentencing him to lengthy prison terms," she said. "Change should come from inside the person."
Banned In Central Asia
According to experts, imprisoned Hizb ut-Tahrir members have been using prisons as a place to spread their beliefs and attract new supporters.
Officially recognizing Hizb ut-Tahrir and allowing it to participate in elections would spare many people from being imprisoned and keep the wives and daughters of jailed men from turning against the authorities.
But it seems unlikely that any governments in Central Asia would be willing to officially recognize Hizb ut-Tahrir anytime soon.
In fact, the office of the Dushanbe city prosecutor suggested last week to include Hizb ut-Tahrir on the official list of terrorist groups.
The Osh-based analyst Sagnaeva says Hizb ut-Tahrir will be around for many more years, operating in Central Asia secretly and attracting support from both men and women.
(Soljida Djakhfarova, the director of RFE/RL's Uzbek Service, contributed to this report.)
A court in the Uzbek capital Tashkent gave suspended sentences to seven women on July 9 for their alleged membership in the banned religious group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Another Uzbek woman, found guilty of similar charges, was sentenced to three years in prison.
Women Arrested
And in neighboring Tajikistan, Mutabar Bobojonova -- a woman who lives in the northern village Isfisor -- was arrested in June on suspicion of supporting the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir.
"I think you cannot change a person by sentencing him to lengthy prison terms. Change should come from inside the person."Experts in Central Asia point out that Hizb ut-Tahrir has been trying to recruit more women in the region and that compared to other political parties -- those both officially registered and underground groups -- it has been successful on that front.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is officially banned in all Central Asian countries, though the U.S. State Department does not consider it a terrorist organization.
Top political leaders and senior officials in law-enforcement agencies in Central Asia -- especially in Uzbekistan -- have severely criticized the group, branding it a terrorist organization that threatens the stability of the whole region.
Hundreds of alleged supporters of the group have reportedly been arrested, tortured, and sentenced to lengthy prison terms in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, according to Amnesty International, the human-rights watchdog.
Not Suspicious
Sanya Sagnaeva, a senior analyst at the regional office of the International Crisis Group in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, says that since it is deemed an illegal group it is easier for Hizb ut-Tahrir to continue with the help of female supporters because the authorities do not usually suspect women of being involved in political campaigns.
"Women's interest in this party might be linked to the fact that the party itself puts emphasis on working with women, and that is because -- according to Central Asian traditions -- there is a lower possibility of women being prosecuted [by the state]," she says.
There are no official statistics on the exact number of members in the underground group living in Central Asia.
Experts put the number of Hizb ut-Tahrir supporters in the region at up to 15,000. However, the group itself claims that it has hundreds of thousand of members and supporters, including many women.
The group says its campaign is entirely peaceful.
Islamic Caliphate
Law-enforcement agencies in Central Asia say they usually confiscate Hizb ut-Tahrir's booklets and other literature, which usually call on people to overthrow their government and create an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia.
Most of the women imprisoned for alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir membership were found guilty of distributing the leaflets and trying to recruit more members.
Ikbal Mirsaidov, an expert at the Presidential Center for International Strategic Studies in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, says that with thousands of people being arrested and imprisoned for alleged membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir over the past decade, it is inevitable that the group would find support among women.
That is because, Mirsaidov says, most of the female supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir are family members of those who have been imprisoned by authorities.
"Most of these women who have now become politically active have seen their husbands, brothers, or fathers being prosecuted for Hizb ut-Tahrir membership," she says. "This is why they are reacting to their family member's imprisonment by law-enforcement authorities."
The leader of the Social Democratic Party in Tajikistan's northern Sughd region, Dilbar Samadova, says that while government authorities claim that there are thousands of followers of Hizb ut-Tahrir operating in the country, officially registered political parties are having difficulty gaining support among the population.
Samadova says Tajiks, especially women, are becoming more indifferent to politics altogether and mistrust both the government and the opposition.
Alone And Poor
Samadova says she suspects the Hizb ut-Tahrir is taking advantage of widespread poverty and the fact that hundreds of thousands of men have left for seasonal work in Russia, leaving their wives as the head of the household and their families during their husbands' absence.
According to Samadova, Hizb ut-Tahrir -- which reportedly gets financial support from some foreign countries -- might provide money to the women in order to win their support.
"Women carry most of the burden of their family's everyday lives," she said. "The women's social and economic situation is appalling."
An Uzbek woman convicted of being a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, who did not want to give her name, said she was released from a Tajik prison under the presidential amnesty in June. She said she had been sentenced to five years in prison and lived among "convicted criminals." But despite this experience, she said her time in prison she did not change her beliefs.
"I think you cannot change a person by sentencing him to lengthy prison terms," she said. "Change should come from inside the person."
Banned In Central Asia
According to experts, imprisoned Hizb ut-Tahrir members have been using prisons as a place to spread their beliefs and attract new supporters.
Officially recognizing Hizb ut-Tahrir and allowing it to participate in elections would spare many people from being imprisoned and keep the wives and daughters of jailed men from turning against the authorities.
But it seems unlikely that any governments in Central Asia would be willing to officially recognize Hizb ut-Tahrir anytime soon.
In fact, the office of the Dushanbe city prosecutor suggested last week to include Hizb ut-Tahrir on the official list of terrorist groups.
The Osh-based analyst Sagnaeva says Hizb ut-Tahrir will be around for many more years, operating in Central Asia secretly and attracting support from both men and women.
(Soljida Djakhfarova, the director of RFE/RL's Uzbek Service, contributed to this report.)
Local Hizb ut-Tahrir leader detained in southern Kyrgyzstan
Bishkek, July 17, Interfax - One of the local leaders of the Hizb ut-Tahrir extremist organization, Alisher Iminzhanov, has been detained in the south of Kyrgyzstan, the republic's Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.
"The man was detained in the city of Osh. He was a senior member of this extremist organization. Iminzhanov was earlier prosecuted for inciting religious hatred. An investigation is underway," the ministry said.
"A special purpose operation is currently being conducted in the capital ahead of the SCO summit due on August 16," the Bishkek police department told Interfax.
These efforts "are intended to dismantle the activities of extremist organizations and to prevent illegal migration on the territory of Bishkek," the department said.
Underground extremist organizations could have up to 5,000 supporters in Kyrgyzstan, according to specialists of the country's security services.
"The man was detained in the city of Osh. He was a senior member of this extremist organization. Iminzhanov was earlier prosecuted for inciting religious hatred. An investigation is underway," the ministry said.
"A special purpose operation is currently being conducted in the capital ahead of the SCO summit due on August 16," the Bishkek police department told Interfax.
These efforts "are intended to dismantle the activities of extremist organizations and to prevent illegal migration on the territory of Bishkek," the department said.
Underground extremist organizations could have up to 5,000 supporters in Kyrgyzstan, according to specialists of the country's security services.
Thursday, 12 July 2007
Glasgow bombs: the doctor I knew
Shiraz Maher
Published 05 July 2007
12 comments Print version Listen RSS How did Dr Bilal Abdulla, a medic from Paisley hospital, come to be one of Britain's prime terror suspects? Here is the testimony of a former Islamic radical who knew him well, written exclusively for the NS
When I saw Bilal Abdulla's name in the news, I recognised it immediately, though it took me a while to be completely sure it was the man I remembered. It wasn't long before I was certain. This was the same Bilal whom I had known closely when I was a student at Cambridge.
I was born in Birmingham, although my parents were originally from Pakistan. When I was three months old my family moved to Saudi Arabia, where my dad had got a job as an accountant, but when I was 14 they sent me back to Britain to give me a better education. I attended Solihull School and lived with my grandparents.
In September 2000 I went to Leeds University to study history. I was a pretty sociable student and I enjoyed life. Then some of my friends began encouraging me to attend mosque, at least on Fridays. When 9/11 happened I had already started praying and going to mosque more regularly, rediscovering my faith. I remember thinking about the attacks: "This changes everything." I was confused about it. I didn't know what Islam made of it. Part of me thought they must be justified.
Nobody was offering me direction. I already knew about Hizb ut-Tahrir, so I talked to one of their guys at Leeds Grand Mosque who was in charge of the area. He took me back to his house where, I remember, we drank mint tea. He said America would use these events to colonise the Muslim world, to humiliate us, to attack Islam. I was convinced there would be war in Afghanistan. He brought me into the organisation within days. He was my cell leader and I rose through the ranks swiftly. By the end of my second year at university, I was looking after the whole area stretching from Leeds to Newcastle and Durham, and sat on the regional committee for the north of England. Our job was to liaise with cell leaders, to pressurise them to recruit more people. They were breathing down our necks. There was so much pressure on us to recruit.
After graduating I moved to Cambridge in September 2004 to start a PhD in history. I was living in a rented house on Milton Road and I had been in Cambridge only a matter of hours when the local rep of Hizb ut-Tahrir arrived at the house. He gave me a hand unpacking boxes and settling in. Once we'd done this it was a case of getting down to business. The guy was a friend. All of us in the party, as we called the organisation, knew each other well. Over a cup of tea he filled me in on the situation in my new town, regarding the dawah, the strategy. We went through a list of people identified as potential recruits. One of these was Bilal Abdulla.
Bilal struck me as very warm and affable. He was someone who knew about Islam. Even though he wore western clothes, he was very religious. His recitation of the Quran was very good. If he attended, he would always lead prayers.
Bilal had grown up in Baghdad. He told me how he hated Saddam Hussein, how even after the American invasion his extended family stayed there. All were of the same ideological persuasion. All believed in Wahhabi ideology. He didn't see himself as being radical: he saw himself as following Islam. He developed a vitriolic hatred for the Shias after one of his closest friends at university in Iraq was killed by a Shia militiaman. He would say they needed to be massacred. He called them kafirs, disbelievers who insulted the Prophet.
Bilal said he had come to Britain to better his life, but did speak about returning home. When I first met him he was preparing to take the medical conversion course that would have allowed him to work as a doctor here. In the meantime, he worked behind the till at the local Staples stationery store.
I remember one incident well. Bilal lived above a Bengali restaurant. The other guy in his flat used to sing and play guitar, diabolically out of tune. I went round one day to Bilal's and heard this guy singing and wailing. I said, "What's this?" Bilal called him a "waster" and boasted to me that a few days earlier he had brought the guy into his bedroom. He sat him down and told him he needed to pray. He told him: "If you ever play again I'm going to smash the guitar." He then put on a video of al-Zarqawi beheading one of the hostages in Iraq. "If you think I'm messing about, this is what we do. This is what our people do - we slaughter." Bilal laughed when he recounted the story. I laughed with him, although I remember thinking the word slaughter was a bit disproportionate.
Hard hearts for non-believers
Bilal didn't have a TV and kept his distance from people he considered were not true Muslims. He refused to frequent the local halal takeaway in Cambridge because the Turkish guys there didn't attend mosque. He used to say to me: "We should have soft hearts for the believers and hard hearts for the non-believers." He epitomised this. He was very humble and polite and had an endearing and distinctive belly laugh. He spent his time reading the Quran and looking at Arabic-language or jihadi websites. I remember during Ramadan that year, 2004, on the 27th and most holy night, we all went down to London to the Regent's Park Mosque. It happened that was the night the Americans launched the massive assault on Fallujah. Bilal spent the whole night on his prayer mat. His stamina was something to behold.
By the end we would link up once a week. Some of the time he would come round to my place. Mostly we met in the cultural centre, the Islamic Academy on Gilbert Road. It was within walking distance of where both Bilal and I lived. It had a prayer hall downstairs and three bedrooms upstairs. One of those rooms was rented by the Hizb guy and, because of its location and Islamic setting, this became the main focal point where we would socialise, meet and discuss things. You could say all our activities in Cambridge orbited around the Islamic Academy.
Bilal talked about the validity of jihad, about expelling American and British troops. He described jihad as the highest pinnacle of Islam. He worked to the same endgame that we were all working to. There was no difference between us at the time. He would laugh when we talked about a particular bomb attack in Iraq. We all rejoiced then. And yet even I didn't think that he would take action himself.
Like myself, Bilal didn't have any non-Muslim friends and the circle of Muslims he chose to socialise with was small and selective. But he certainly trusted and respected us. I think this was solely because he recognised that we shared the same ultimate vision as him for Iraq and the wider Muslim world. In that sense our views were virtually identical. We only differed over our choice of method.
And so it was through my involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir and its ideology of extremist political Islam that I came to befriend Bilal, the would-be bomber. That's why I believe it's wrong to distinguish between "extremism" and "violent extremism" as the government has been doing in recent months. The two are inextricably intertwined. Without movements such as Hizb creating the moral imperatives to justify terror, people like Bilal wouldn't have the support of an ideological infrastructure cheering them on. And, I believe, it's a fallacy to suggest that the culpability of agitators and cheerleaders is any less than for those who actually carry out acts of terror.
I didn't complete my PhD, as I didn't get funding. In July 2005 I left Cambridge and moved back to Birmingham. That was a few days before 7/7. Bilal and I lost touch. I left Hizb ut- Tahrir and had never heard of him since - until last week.
Next week Shiraz Maher writes about why he left radical Islam behind him
Published 05 July 2007
12 comments Print version Listen RSS How did Dr Bilal Abdulla, a medic from Paisley hospital, come to be one of Britain's prime terror suspects? Here is the testimony of a former Islamic radical who knew him well, written exclusively for the NS
When I saw Bilal Abdulla's name in the news, I recognised it immediately, though it took me a while to be completely sure it was the man I remembered. It wasn't long before I was certain. This was the same Bilal whom I had known closely when I was a student at Cambridge.
I was born in Birmingham, although my parents were originally from Pakistan. When I was three months old my family moved to Saudi Arabia, where my dad had got a job as an accountant, but when I was 14 they sent me back to Britain to give me a better education. I attended Solihull School and lived with my grandparents.
In September 2000 I went to Leeds University to study history. I was a pretty sociable student and I enjoyed life. Then some of my friends began encouraging me to attend mosque, at least on Fridays. When 9/11 happened I had already started praying and going to mosque more regularly, rediscovering my faith. I remember thinking about the attacks: "This changes everything." I was confused about it. I didn't know what Islam made of it. Part of me thought they must be justified.
Nobody was offering me direction. I already knew about Hizb ut-Tahrir, so I talked to one of their guys at Leeds Grand Mosque who was in charge of the area. He took me back to his house where, I remember, we drank mint tea. He said America would use these events to colonise the Muslim world, to humiliate us, to attack Islam. I was convinced there would be war in Afghanistan. He brought me into the organisation within days. He was my cell leader and I rose through the ranks swiftly. By the end of my second year at university, I was looking after the whole area stretching from Leeds to Newcastle and Durham, and sat on the regional committee for the north of England. Our job was to liaise with cell leaders, to pressurise them to recruit more people. They were breathing down our necks. There was so much pressure on us to recruit.
After graduating I moved to Cambridge in September 2004 to start a PhD in history. I was living in a rented house on Milton Road and I had been in Cambridge only a matter of hours when the local rep of Hizb ut-Tahrir arrived at the house. He gave me a hand unpacking boxes and settling in. Once we'd done this it was a case of getting down to business. The guy was a friend. All of us in the party, as we called the organisation, knew each other well. Over a cup of tea he filled me in on the situation in my new town, regarding the dawah, the strategy. We went through a list of people identified as potential recruits. One of these was Bilal Abdulla.
Bilal struck me as very warm and affable. He was someone who knew about Islam. Even though he wore western clothes, he was very religious. His recitation of the Quran was very good. If he attended, he would always lead prayers.
Bilal had grown up in Baghdad. He told me how he hated Saddam Hussein, how even after the American invasion his extended family stayed there. All were of the same ideological persuasion. All believed in Wahhabi ideology. He didn't see himself as being radical: he saw himself as following Islam. He developed a vitriolic hatred for the Shias after one of his closest friends at university in Iraq was killed by a Shia militiaman. He would say they needed to be massacred. He called them kafirs, disbelievers who insulted the Prophet.
Bilal said he had come to Britain to better his life, but did speak about returning home. When I first met him he was preparing to take the medical conversion course that would have allowed him to work as a doctor here. In the meantime, he worked behind the till at the local Staples stationery store.
I remember one incident well. Bilal lived above a Bengali restaurant. The other guy in his flat used to sing and play guitar, diabolically out of tune. I went round one day to Bilal's and heard this guy singing and wailing. I said, "What's this?" Bilal called him a "waster" and boasted to me that a few days earlier he had brought the guy into his bedroom. He sat him down and told him he needed to pray. He told him: "If you ever play again I'm going to smash the guitar." He then put on a video of al-Zarqawi beheading one of the hostages in Iraq. "If you think I'm messing about, this is what we do. This is what our people do - we slaughter." Bilal laughed when he recounted the story. I laughed with him, although I remember thinking the word slaughter was a bit disproportionate.
Hard hearts for non-believers
Bilal didn't have a TV and kept his distance from people he considered were not true Muslims. He refused to frequent the local halal takeaway in Cambridge because the Turkish guys there didn't attend mosque. He used to say to me: "We should have soft hearts for the believers and hard hearts for the non-believers." He epitomised this. He was very humble and polite and had an endearing and distinctive belly laugh. He spent his time reading the Quran and looking at Arabic-language or jihadi websites. I remember during Ramadan that year, 2004, on the 27th and most holy night, we all went down to London to the Regent's Park Mosque. It happened that was the night the Americans launched the massive assault on Fallujah. Bilal spent the whole night on his prayer mat. His stamina was something to behold.
By the end we would link up once a week. Some of the time he would come round to my place. Mostly we met in the cultural centre, the Islamic Academy on Gilbert Road. It was within walking distance of where both Bilal and I lived. It had a prayer hall downstairs and three bedrooms upstairs. One of those rooms was rented by the Hizb guy and, because of its location and Islamic setting, this became the main focal point where we would socialise, meet and discuss things. You could say all our activities in Cambridge orbited around the Islamic Academy.
Bilal talked about the validity of jihad, about expelling American and British troops. He described jihad as the highest pinnacle of Islam. He worked to the same endgame that we were all working to. There was no difference between us at the time. He would laugh when we talked about a particular bomb attack in Iraq. We all rejoiced then. And yet even I didn't think that he would take action himself.
Like myself, Bilal didn't have any non-Muslim friends and the circle of Muslims he chose to socialise with was small and selective. But he certainly trusted and respected us. I think this was solely because he recognised that we shared the same ultimate vision as him for Iraq and the wider Muslim world. In that sense our views were virtually identical. We only differed over our choice of method.
And so it was through my involvement with Hizb ut-Tahrir and its ideology of extremist political Islam that I came to befriend Bilal, the would-be bomber. That's why I believe it's wrong to distinguish between "extremism" and "violent extremism" as the government has been doing in recent months. The two are inextricably intertwined. Without movements such as Hizb creating the moral imperatives to justify terror, people like Bilal wouldn't have the support of an ideological infrastructure cheering them on. And, I believe, it's a fallacy to suggest that the culpability of agitators and cheerleaders is any less than for those who actually carry out acts of terror.
I didn't complete my PhD, as I didn't get funding. In July 2005 I left Cambridge and moved back to Birmingham. That was a few days before 7/7. Bilal and I lost touch. I left Hizb ut- Tahrir and had never heard of him since - until last week.
Next week Shiraz Maher writes about why he left radical Islam behind him
Radical group faces ban
The Australian
Natalie O'Brien and Peter Wilson
July 07, 2007
ATTORNEY-General Philip Ruddock will ask security agencies to reinvestigate the radical Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir after revelations that the British men arrested over the foiled car bomb plot were closely linked to members of the group in London.
Mr Ruddock said yesterday he would pass on "any information that comes to my attention about organisations where it is suggested that consideration should be given to proscription" to Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty as well as relevant organisations.
The test of whether a group should be banned was "not embarked upon lightly", Mr Ruddock said. "It's one in which I must be satisfied, on advice, that the organisation is directly or indirectly engaged in preparing, planning or assisting, or fostering a terrorist act."
Mr Ruddock's comments came as Commissioner Keelty revealed that officers were searching through 31,000 documents in relation to the British terror attacks, and had spread their investigation to Western Australia.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, which claims to have about 200 Australian members, has been previously criticised by John Howard and twice investigated by ASIO.
Its radical agenda has prompted NSW Premier Morris Iemma to call for it to be proscribed.
Mr Ruddock said in the past that there had not been enough evidence to designate it as a terrorist organisation.
Four of the seven London suspects, including the two men who rammed a car into a terminal building at Glasgow Airport last Saturday, spent time working or studying in the university town of Cambridge, where some of them socialised and prayed with members of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Bilal Abdulla, the 27-year-old passenger in the car, fellow doctor Mohammed Asha, 26, and his wife, Dana, worked together at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge in 2005.
Kafeel Ahmed, the driver of the car at the airport who is now in a Glasgow hospital close to death with major burns, studied as an engineer at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge at that time and is now believed to have made the group's failed bombs.
Dr Ahmed's brother Sabeel, who was arrested in Liverpool, visited him in Cambridge and met his friends there. The Ahmeds are cousins of Mohamed Haneef, who was seized at Brisbane airport on Monday night.
Hizb ut-Tahrir has been banned in Europe, China and Saudi Arabia but is active in Britain and Australia, advocating the establishment of an international caliphate, or Muslim government, to run countries with a majority Muslim population under sharia, Islamic law.
A spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain last night denied that those arrested over the London and Glasgow attacks had been members of the group.
But Shiraz Maher, a former Hizb ut-Tahir member, told the BBC's Newsnight program that the men seized at Glasgow airport shared Hizb ut-Tahrir's main ideals and actively associated with its members in Cambridge.
Other ex-members of Hizb ut-Tahrir have accused the group of inciting violence among its supporters, and of grooming them as terrorists.
One disaffected member in Britain, Ed Husain, has told The Weekend Australian that Hizb ut-Tahrir often deliberately withheld formal membership from some of its associates so it could deny that they were members if they were to get into trouble with the law.
British Opposition Leader David Cameron this week demanded that the Brown Government ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, saying it "was poisoning the minds of young people and has said that Jews should be killed wherever they are found".
Mr Maher said that when he was active in Hizb ut-Tahrir in Cambridge, he was a personal friend of both Abdulla and Kafeel Ahmed.
Hizb ut-Tahrir has been described as a "warm-up track" for terrorists, and a threat to Australia.
Research has found that the group takes advantage of Australian tolerance to launch propaganda attacks on the country and that its adherents are primed to take the next step to jihad, if called upon to do so.
The propaganda of the group encourages a level of religious hatred that could convince its followers to carry out terrorist acts, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
A paper released earlier this year by the think-tank's Anthony Bergin and Jacob Townsend said that although Hizb ut-Tahrir did not advocate the use of terror, it used the same radical terminology as al-Qa'ida.
The paper warned that the group's Australian operations needed to be closely monitored and could be a "warm-up track for violent radicals".
"Hizb ut-Tahrir advocates a revolutionary change to our social and political system," the paper said. "It encourages indirectly and sometimes more directly political violence by its inciting propaganda.
"It uses Australian tolerance to promote radical propaganda even against Australia itself."
The group held a conference in Sydney in late December and early January calling for all Muslims in Australia to work towards forming a pan-global Islamic state. The meeting featured controversial Indonesian cleric Ismail Yusanto as a speaker.
Additional reporting: Selina Mitchell, Sanna Trad
Natalie O'Brien and Peter Wilson
July 07, 2007
ATTORNEY-General Philip Ruddock will ask security agencies to reinvestigate the radical Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir after revelations that the British men arrested over the foiled car bomb plot were closely linked to members of the group in London.
Mr Ruddock said yesterday he would pass on "any information that comes to my attention about organisations where it is suggested that consideration should be given to proscription" to Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty as well as relevant organisations.
The test of whether a group should be banned was "not embarked upon lightly", Mr Ruddock said. "It's one in which I must be satisfied, on advice, that the organisation is directly or indirectly engaged in preparing, planning or assisting, or fostering a terrorist act."
Mr Ruddock's comments came as Commissioner Keelty revealed that officers were searching through 31,000 documents in relation to the British terror attacks, and had spread their investigation to Western Australia.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, which claims to have about 200 Australian members, has been previously criticised by John Howard and twice investigated by ASIO.
Its radical agenda has prompted NSW Premier Morris Iemma to call for it to be proscribed.
Mr Ruddock said in the past that there had not been enough evidence to designate it as a terrorist organisation.
Four of the seven London suspects, including the two men who rammed a car into a terminal building at Glasgow Airport last Saturday, spent time working or studying in the university town of Cambridge, where some of them socialised and prayed with members of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Bilal Abdulla, the 27-year-old passenger in the car, fellow doctor Mohammed Asha, 26, and his wife, Dana, worked together at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge in 2005.
Kafeel Ahmed, the driver of the car at the airport who is now in a Glasgow hospital close to death with major burns, studied as an engineer at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge at that time and is now believed to have made the group's failed bombs.
Dr Ahmed's brother Sabeel, who was arrested in Liverpool, visited him in Cambridge and met his friends there. The Ahmeds are cousins of Mohamed Haneef, who was seized at Brisbane airport on Monday night.
Hizb ut-Tahrir has been banned in Europe, China and Saudi Arabia but is active in Britain and Australia, advocating the establishment of an international caliphate, or Muslim government, to run countries with a majority Muslim population under sharia, Islamic law.
A spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain last night denied that those arrested over the London and Glasgow attacks had been members of the group.
But Shiraz Maher, a former Hizb ut-Tahir member, told the BBC's Newsnight program that the men seized at Glasgow airport shared Hizb ut-Tahrir's main ideals and actively associated with its members in Cambridge.
Other ex-members of Hizb ut-Tahrir have accused the group of inciting violence among its supporters, and of grooming them as terrorists.
One disaffected member in Britain, Ed Husain, has told The Weekend Australian that Hizb ut-Tahrir often deliberately withheld formal membership from some of its associates so it could deny that they were members if they were to get into trouble with the law.
British Opposition Leader David Cameron this week demanded that the Brown Government ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, saying it "was poisoning the minds of young people and has said that Jews should be killed wherever they are found".
Mr Maher said that when he was active in Hizb ut-Tahrir in Cambridge, he was a personal friend of both Abdulla and Kafeel Ahmed.
Hizb ut-Tahrir has been described as a "warm-up track" for terrorists, and a threat to Australia.
Research has found that the group takes advantage of Australian tolerance to launch propaganda attacks on the country and that its adherents are primed to take the next step to jihad, if called upon to do so.
The propaganda of the group encourages a level of religious hatred that could convince its followers to carry out terrorist acts, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
A paper released earlier this year by the think-tank's Anthony Bergin and Jacob Townsend said that although Hizb ut-Tahrir did not advocate the use of terror, it used the same radical terminology as al-Qa'ida.
The paper warned that the group's Australian operations needed to be closely monitored and could be a "warm-up track for violent radicals".
"Hizb ut-Tahrir advocates a revolutionary change to our social and political system," the paper said. "It encourages indirectly and sometimes more directly political violence by its inciting propaganda.
"It uses Australian tolerance to promote radical propaganda even against Australia itself."
The group held a conference in Sydney in late December and early January calling for all Muslims in Australia to work towards forming a pan-global Islamic state. The meeting featured controversial Indonesian cleric Ismail Yusanto as a speaker.
Additional reporting: Selina Mitchell, Sanna Trad
Ed Husain - Chilling similarities
July 10, 2007 12:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ed_husain/2007/07/chilling_similarities.html
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer
One Nation, One State, One Caliph
Sound familiar? Hizb ut-Tahrir's slogans, reiterated by members during the 1990s - and continued today throughout the Middle East - bear a chilling resemblance to that of the German Nazi party. The similarities don't end there: ideological totalitarianism, expansionist foreign policy, the designation of women to the private realm, the rejection of democracy, concepts of relationship between party and state, notions of the master race, education system as indoctrination and anti-semitism are all features they both share.
The Nazis realised their aims, while Islamists from Hizb ut-Tahrir remain desperate to bring about their state. Yes, I call them Islamists and I make no apology for doing so. Islamism is not Islam, as Zionism is not Judaism. Hizb ut-Tahrir and others in Britain may wish to continue to blur the lines between Islam and Islamism, but their Jordan-based global leader, Ata bin Khalil Abu Rishta, freely deploys "Islamism" and "Islamists" in his Arabic writings. The Arab press is full of references to this political ideology: so why can we not use Islamism to refer to them in Britain? We should and we must if we are to separate ordinary Muslims from political ideologues.
Abu Rishta's candour does not stop there. He relishes the use of language such as "the cursed Jews" and "occupying kuffar". Under the threat of a ban, Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain may wish to claim that they are not anti-semitic. That the leaflets which contain calls for killing Jews are for Palestine (so that makes it acceptable?), but I ask why Hizb ut-Tahrir gave me and hundreds of other young British Muslims leaflets in throughout the 1990s to distribute in Britain which were entitled: "The only meeting place between a Muslim and a Jew is in the battlefield."
Richard Littlejohn's excellent television documentary, in most parts, last night exposed the results of that discourse: a British Jewish community under siege and living in fear, compelled to hire security guards to attend synagogues; al-Muhajiroun Islamists at demonstrations openly speaking against Jews.
In my secret cell meetings, the weekly halaqah, Hizb ut-Tahrir taught us to deny the Holocaust: it was a Zionist conspiracy to help create the "bastard state of Israel". In Ilford, as well as other parts of London, the Hizb organised activists to attend Jewish public meetings and intimidate Jews. On university campuses across Britain, Hizb ut-Tahrir deliberately sought confrontation with Jewish and Israeli student societies.
The well-rehearsed media representatives of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain today may claim that they are not anti-Jewish, but let's hear that from the rank-and-file activists of the Hizb. Why is there a gag on ordinary shabab, party activists, from speaking to the media or other public bodies? More importantly, will their leader Abu Rishta from Jordan stop attacking Jews? Will he stop promising annihilation of the state of Israel? Unless Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain apologise for their horrendous conduct in the 1990s, their creation of an evil al-Muhajiroun, and publicly distance themselves from their current Arab leadership, then we must consider Hizb ut-Tahrir a subversive fifth column in our midst, awaiting instructions from a coming caliph before they turn to mass suicide bombings.
Hizb ut-Tahrir are not a "non-violent political party". The discourse of peaceful political change comes from great people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Aung Sun Su Chi. Violence is not an option in their methods. The Hizb constitution describes France, Britain, US and Russia as "potentially belligerent states" and a "state of war" would be assumed in the case of Israel on day one of their Islamist State.
Remember, the only difference between Islamists from Hizb ut-Tahrir and jihadists is that the former are waiting for their state and caliph before they commence jihad, while the latter believes the time for jihad is now, vigilante action, without state-driven leadership. We ignore Hizb ut-Tahrir at our peril.
We can wait for their state to come about and then confront them as we did the Nazis, at a very late stage and at a high human cost, or we can stop appeasing Hizb ut-Tahrir and its offshoots and demand: either change, or perish. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ed_husain/2007/07/chilling_similarities.html
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer
One Nation, One State, One Caliph
Sound familiar? Hizb ut-Tahrir's slogans, reiterated by members during the 1990s - and continued today throughout the Middle East - bear a chilling resemblance to that of the German Nazi party. The similarities don't end there: ideological totalitarianism, expansionist foreign policy, the designation of women to the private realm, the rejection of democracy, concepts of relationship between party and state, notions of the master race, education system as indoctrination and anti-semitism are all features they both share.
The Nazis realised their aims, while Islamists from Hizb ut-Tahrir remain desperate to bring about their state. Yes, I call them Islamists and I make no apology for doing so. Islamism is not Islam, as Zionism is not Judaism. Hizb ut-Tahrir and others in Britain may wish to continue to blur the lines between Islam and Islamism, but their Jordan-based global leader, Ata bin Khalil Abu Rishta, freely deploys "Islamism" and "Islamists" in his Arabic writings. The Arab press is full of references to this political ideology: so why can we not use Islamism to refer to them in Britain? We should and we must if we are to separate ordinary Muslims from political ideologues.
Abu Rishta's candour does not stop there. He relishes the use of language such as "the cursed Jews" and "occupying kuffar". Under the threat of a ban, Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain may wish to claim that they are not anti-semitic. That the leaflets which contain calls for killing Jews are for Palestine (so that makes it acceptable?), but I ask why Hizb ut-Tahrir gave me and hundreds of other young British Muslims leaflets in throughout the 1990s to distribute in Britain which were entitled: "The only meeting place between a Muslim and a Jew is in the battlefield."
Richard Littlejohn's excellent television documentary, in most parts, last night exposed the results of that discourse: a British Jewish community under siege and living in fear, compelled to hire security guards to attend synagogues; al-Muhajiroun Islamists at demonstrations openly speaking against Jews.
In my secret cell meetings, the weekly halaqah, Hizb ut-Tahrir taught us to deny the Holocaust: it was a Zionist conspiracy to help create the "bastard state of Israel". In Ilford, as well as other parts of London, the Hizb organised activists to attend Jewish public meetings and intimidate Jews. On university campuses across Britain, Hizb ut-Tahrir deliberately sought confrontation with Jewish and Israeli student societies.
The well-rehearsed media representatives of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain today may claim that they are not anti-Jewish, but let's hear that from the rank-and-file activists of the Hizb. Why is there a gag on ordinary shabab, party activists, from speaking to the media or other public bodies? More importantly, will their leader Abu Rishta from Jordan stop attacking Jews? Will he stop promising annihilation of the state of Israel? Unless Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain apologise for their horrendous conduct in the 1990s, their creation of an evil al-Muhajiroun, and publicly distance themselves from their current Arab leadership, then we must consider Hizb ut-Tahrir a subversive fifth column in our midst, awaiting instructions from a coming caliph before they turn to mass suicide bombings.
Hizb ut-Tahrir are not a "non-violent political party". The discourse of peaceful political change comes from great people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Aung Sun Su Chi. Violence is not an option in their methods. The Hizb constitution describes France, Britain, US and Russia as "potentially belligerent states" and a "state of war" would be assumed in the case of Israel on day one of their Islamist State.
Remember, the only difference between Islamists from Hizb ut-Tahrir and jihadists is that the former are waiting for their state and caliph before they commence jihad, while the latter believes the time for jihad is now, vigilante action, without state-driven leadership. We ignore Hizb ut-Tahrir at our peril.
We can wait for their state to come about and then confront them as we did the Nazis, at a very late stage and at a high human cost, or we can stop appeasing Hizb ut-Tahrir and its offshoots and demand: either change, or perish. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye.
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