The Bad Guys You Don't Know by Olivier Guitta

While al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood have become household names, another Sunni Islamist group of nearly equal importance--Hizb ut- Tahrir (HT), or the Islamic Liberation party--remains little known in the United States. That may be changing. HT's activities in places as far-flung as Britain, Germany, Indonesia, and the Palestinian territories have been cropping up in the news, and HT has lately entered the social networks of cyberspace, posting propaganda videos on YouTube to troll for recruits to its campaign for uniting Muslims worldwide in a new caliphate.

One of HT's goals is to destroy Israel and "liberate Palestine from occupation, racism and impurity by going back to the strict practice of a true Islam." In August, an HT rally in the West Bank city of Ramallah drew some 10,000 people under the banner "The caliphate, a force for the future." Although the man who founded HT in 1953 in Jerusalem, Sheikh Taqiuddin al-Nabhani, was a Palestinian--a qadi (Muslim judge) and an ex-Muslim Brother seeking a more radical alternative to the Brotherhood--HT was until recently an insignificant player in Palestinian politics. Not anymore. A Palestinian civil servant and HT adherent recently told the French daily Libération:

Full Article...

Sphere: Related Content