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Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

via translation - Thousands of Islamists commemorate the storming of the Red Mosque Thousands of Islamist radicals gathered in Islamabad to celebrate the first anniversary of the bloody storming of the Red Mosque. The capital of Pakistan is placed under high surveillance. Many demonstrators deemed close to the Taliban and Al Qaeda brandissaient black flags and slogans scandaient paying tribute to the "martyrs" of the headquarters of the Red Mosque. The police established a security perimeter around the mosque, inaccessible by car, with son barbed wire and search pedestrians in the search for possible weapons. "We demand to act against...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

U.S. to Offer Turkey Help on PKK The U.S. is to offer Turkey a package of measures to dissuade Ankara from mounting a large-scale military incursion into Iraq to attack PKK Kurdish guerrillas, who have killed scores of Turkish soldiers in recent weeks. Ahead of a meeting in Washington on Monday between President George W. Bush and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, U.S. officials said Ankara would have to get concrete American help to combat the PKK, which has bases in northern Iraq from where it frequently launches attacks into Turkey. “Erdogan has to go back with the...

haka, Nov 24 - Several hundred activists of the radical Islamic group Hizb ut Tahrir staged protests here before the arrival of two ships of the US Navy for distributing relief supplies among cyclone-affected people. Two warships, USS Essex and USS Kearsarge -- each carrying 20 helicopters and 3,500 marines on board with emergency relief supplies, medical and emergency evacuation teams -- are scheduled to enter Bangladesh waters Saturday and Tuesday. The protesters Friday carried a banner reading 'Prevent American ships from entering the Bay of Bengal in the name of distributing relief' and chanted slogans 'Go back to America'...

The Birth of al Qaedastan In the year 2016, the world may find itself gloomily marking September 6 as the tenth anniversary of the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan. The Emirate received de facto recognition when the Taliban used the name on the ceasefire agreement they signed with Pakistan on that day in 2006. If things go terribly wrong in the coming decade, they could come to rule a mountainous fragment of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Emirate would be a nightmare state: Osama bin Laden as sultan, Ayman al Zawahiri as vizier, and Mullah Omar the spiritual...

The Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) hosted the International Khilafah Conference last month. Since this event, Indonesian mass media has been discussing the pros and cons of implementing a caliphate system in Indonesia which involves the formal application of shari'a as the legal code for the umma - Muslim community, under a head of state, or a caliph, who traditionally had both political and spiritual authority. Those who are for the implementation of such a system, especially the HTI itself, cite that the obligation to enforce a caliphate system is based on the religious order to establish God's law for the...

Sunday’s national meeting for the radical Hizb ut-Tahrir included incitement to destroy Israel and a re-establishment of the Caliphate Islamic empire Controversial Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir celebrated its annual congress in Copenhagen on Sunday with words of anger against Jews and the West, reported daily free newspaper Nyhedsavisen. Nearly 600 Muslims attended the meeting at KB Hallen in the city’s enclave of Frederiksberg, where religious leaders spoke of the rise of an new Islamic Caliphate and the fall of Western powers. ‘The Caliphate can arrive in an hour, two months or two years from now,’ said Fadi Abdullatif, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s...

Palestinians back caliphate over politics By Carolynne Wheeler in Kfar Aqab, West Bank Last Updated: 1:16am BST 27/08/2007 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/27/wpal127.xml By day, they are the middle class, putting in days as mild-mannered teachers, factory supervisors and office clerks. Tens of thousands of Palestinian supporters of the Islamic Hizb ut-Tahrir movement demonstrate at a rally in Ramallah But by night, the growing number of supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamic fundamentalists who reject modern democracy in favour of a pan-Islamic religious caliphate, are gathering in the West Bank to recruit the thousands who have grown disillusioned with the vicious stand-off between the...

Excerpt from report by Radio Australia on 6 July [From ABC Radio National's "The World Today" programme] [Presenter Eleanor Hall] Australia's attorney-general has confirmed that he's investigating whether the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose members are alleged to have associated with one of the men arrested over the failed doctor bombing plot in London, should be banned in Australia. A reformed Islamic radical from the London arm of the organization says his group used to meet in the local hospital. He has told the ABC's [Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV] "Lateline" programme that Hizb ut-Tahrir is an extremist organization which has...

While Israelis are preoccupied with threats from Hamas, Iran, Hizbullah, Syria and even al-Qaida, they pay almost no attention to a large, widespread Islamist movement whose goal is to establish a caliphate on the lands "occupied by Zionists." Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation, is totally unknown to most Israelis. This Sunni pan-Islamic Party, which has more than a million members in at least 40 countries, is becoming increasingly popular in the Arab world. The party, founded in Jerusalem 54 years ago, is now returning to its birthplace, presenting a revived caliphate as a viable solution to the problems...

A group of fundamentalist Muslim parents has been calling the shots at a city nursery school since February Members of the fundamental Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir with children at the Salam day care centre in Copenhagen have taken control of its operations by obtaining a majority on its parental committee, according to Berlingkse Tidende newspaper. In February the group took over after the school's two female administrators quit in protest of the difficulties Hizb ut-Tahrir parents were creating for the centre's operations. The Islamic group was refusing to allow the school's 25 Muslim children to participate in singing and dancing...

A radical Muslim cleric has urged hundreds of supporters meeting in Sydney's south-west to join a global push to create an Islamic utopia. Indonesian firebrand cleric Ismail Yusanto outlined his plan for instituting Sharia law, the absolute form of Islam, to a crowd of about 500 people gathered at the Khilafah Conference in Lakemba. The meeting was organised by the Australian arm of the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group widely known for its anti-democratic, anti-Semitic views. The group believes that it can reduce suffering around the globe by introducing Sharia law and creating an Islamic utopia. The NSW government...

A MUSLIM group linked to the London bombings and banned in parts of Europe and the Middle East has booked a southwest Sydney town hall to stage a conference later this month. Hizb-ut-Tahrir has booked the Bankstown Town Hall for January 27, News Ltd newspapers report, and in a video promoting the conference claims it is to discuss the coming of an Islamic superstate. The group, banned in Germany and the Netherlands as well as being linked to the terrorists behind the London bombings in 2005, were seen spreading hate pamphlets around the Bankstown area in August... the group was...

Home Office staff are free to be members of the Islamic extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, it was revealed yesterday. Those working in the department responsible for immigration and homeland security do not even have to declare membership of the fanatical organisation, the Government admitted. This means Home Secretary John Reid has no idea how many of his staff hold the group's radical views and he has no means of monitoring their activities. The revelation - in a written parliamentary answer - comes after Home Office IT manager Abid Javaid, 41, was found to be a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which...

IT SAYS its members brought about the conviction of radical Egyptian-born cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, uncovered insurgent tactics in Iraq and are now working to provide intelligence from North Korea.The organisation is not the US Central Intelligence Agency or Britain's MI6 but Vigil, a shadowy network of retired spies, senior military personnel, anti-terrorism specialists and banking experts. The group's director Dominic Whiteman said he set up Vigil with two other businessmen last year to act as an conduit between retired spies who were still party to good, raw intelligence, and the police and security services. "This evidence was just getting...

Hate videos of Muslim group they failed to ban By Duncan Gardham Last Updated: 1:58am GMT 15/11/2006 A Muslim organisation which the Government chose not to ban is preaching hatred and has infiltrated the Home Office, an investigation has revealed. Hizb ut-Tahrir is showing inflammatory videos to small groups of followers then encouraging them to attack non-believers. An HuT member has gained a job as an information technology worker in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate of the Home Office and been given a grant to organise an event for the radical group, it has been claimed in an undercover investigation...

THE Muslim teacher who insisted on wearing a veil in class has been following a fatwa issued personally to her by a Islamic cleric belonging to a hardline sect. Aishah Azmi found herself in the middle of a national row about integration when she took her school to an employment tribunal after it suspended her for refusing to remove the veil in class. Tony Blair joined the debate about the wearing of veils — opened by Jack Straw, the Commons leader — and supported the school’s actions. Azmi, 24, has maintained that her decision to wear the veil was driven...