Ural police makes away with Al-Qaeda

Law enforcement authorities unveiled a local gang of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir extremist organization in Russia’s Khanty-Mansiisk Region, Interfax reported Wednesday with reference to Head of the Criminal Investigation Department in the Khanty-Mansiisk Criminal Police Anatoly Vorotov.

At the end of December 2004 in the city of Nizhnevartovsk, the police detained six Uzbek citizens from the gang who incited ethnic hatred in the region. The extremist organization to which the men belong spread leaflets and purchased weapons. Anatoly Vorotov reported that the gang consisted of several dozens of Uzbeks. Criminal proceedings based on the RF Criminal Code case # 205 (terrorism) were initiated against the detained.

Besides, the investigation has revealed that organizers of the gang took part in an attempt upon Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov in 1999.

At the end of November 2004, other two members of the organization were detained in Khimki near Moscow with over 13 kg of TNT, 120 g plastid, hand grenades and weapons. The FSB had liquidated a Hizb-ut-Tahrir gang of 11 members in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod a month before that.

The Islamic Party for Liberation, Hizb-at-Tahrir al-Islami, is a Sunite religious and political organization founded by judge of the Shariat Court of Appeal Taqi ud-Din an-Nabahani in Jerusalem in 1953. When he died in 1977, Palestinian Abdul Kadim Zalum living in Jordan became the leader of the organization.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir claims itself to be “a political party espousing the ideology of Islam”. Main goal of the party is to revive the Islamic mode of living among Moslems, as they believe that life in general must be based upon Shariat norms; it also spreads the Islamic faith in the world by means of jihad. At that, the party states the goal can be achieved only if the Islamic world becomes a theocratic state, a caliphate.

Attainment of the goal is supposed to be consisting of three stages: forming of the party core; active cooperation with coreligionists and then spreading of Islam all over the world.
The party does not estimate the date of caliphate restoration and expects Allah will help in achievement of the goal.

Hizb-ut-Tahrir organizations conducted extremist operations in Egypt, Jordan, Tunis, Kuwait, Palestine, Turkey and in Western Europe. In Uzbekistan, operations of the party were first registered in 1995. What is more, Hizb-ut-Tahrir extremists have become particularly active in former Soviet republics in Middle Asia. Its activists are often arrested there.