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ISLAMIC UNDERGROUND SPREADING ACROSS RUSSIA

RIA Novosti

YEKATERINBURG, March 17 (RIA Novosti) - A cell of the radical Islamic organization Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Islamic Liberation Party) was exposed in Chelyabinsk, the largest city of South Urals, the press service of the deputy prosecutor general of Russia in the Urals Federal District reported today.

"The prosecutor office of the Chelyabinsk region and the FSB exposed and cut short the activity of a cell of the extremist organization Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which operated in the regional center," said a source.

By decision of the Supreme Court of Russia of February 14, 2003, this organization was proclaimed terrorist and its operation in Russia prohibited.

The investigators confiscated literature, leaflets and other propaganda materials that fostered religious hatred and ethnic strife. The case will be investigated by a special group.

Some time before that, Hizb-ut-Tahrir was exposed in the Tyumen region (West Siberia). In all, members of the banned party are detained in different, especially Muslim, regions of Russia with frightening regularity.

The largest operation was held in summer 2001, when 131 members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir al-Islami, were detained in Moscow. The detainees included CIS citizens (mostly from Central Asian republics), several Slavs and a group of Arabs. According to the public relations center of the FSB, the latter were the so-called Afghan Arabs, citizens of the Middle East countries who learned terrorist skills in the training center and groups of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

In May 2001, Nodir Aliyev, the leader of Hizb-ut-Tahrir who fled Uzbekistan, was detained in Moscow at the request of the General prosecutor Office of Uzbekistan, and extradited to his home republic later in the year.

The FSB reported at the time that, according to its information, Hizb-ut-Tahrir al-Islami aimed at creating Islamic states within the greater Islamic Caliphate on the territory of Russia and Central Asian states. Its plans of gradual Islamization included forceful establishment of Shariah forms of government first in Uzbekistan and adjacent states and subsequently in the regions of Russia with the predominantly Muslim population.