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U.K. activist warns Hizb Ut-Tahir is dangerous extremist group

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JAKARTA, July 6 (RIA Novosti) - A former Islamic activist living in the U.K. warned that Hizb ut-Tahrir, officially legal in Australia and Britain, is a dangerous extremist organization comprising many doctors and engineers, Australian radio said.

Ed Husain, a former activist in three Islamic groups, including Hizb ut-Tahrir, said on SBS World Radio Australia, "That organization functions in Australia and its leadership takes its call and its literature from the London-based Hizb ut-Tahrir."

He also said, "even here [in the U.K.] the leadership of Hizb Ut Tahrir, as well as the leadership of Wahhabist organizations, are filled with engineers and doctors," adding the most of the leaders are educated at the world's leading medical and engineering universities.

The statements follow recent foiled terrorist attacks in the U.K. June 29 two car bombs were discovered in central London, and a jeep packed with gas cylinders crashed into the Glasgow Airport building June 30. Eight people have been arrested in connection with the incidents and all are believed to work in the health service.

On July 3 a man was arrested, after a tip-off from British police, while trying to board a plane in Brisbane, Australia. He had a one-way ticket to India traveling via Malaysia. The man worked as a doctor and had applied for the post via Liverpool in the U.K.

He was named as Mohammed Haneef, 27, and is a relative of two men arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorist attacks in the U.K.

Kafeel Ahmed was one of two men who drove a jeep packed with gas cylinders and fuel into Glasgow Airport's main passenger terminal June 30. He is currently in hospital under armed guard after receiving 90% burns when the jeep burst into flames. And his brother Sabeel Ahmed, 26, who worked as a doctor, was arrested June 29 in Liverpool.

Founded in 1996, Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) has been banned throughout former Soviet Central Asia, as well as in Russia, Germany, and many Arab states, over extremism concerns. Although it claims to be a non-violent group, it is dedicated to establishing a united Islamic state, a caliphate, which has raises particular fears in ex-Soviet republics such as Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

Last summer the Russian Federal Security Service issued a list of 15 terrorist organizations whose activities are prohibited in Russia, including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Congress of People of Ichkeria (the name militants use for Chechnya) and Daghestan, and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

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