Author: Nicola Smith in Lahore
Publication: The Sunday Times
Date: July 4, 2009
URL: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6638483.ece
British militants are pushing for the overthrow
of the Pakistani state. Followers of the fundamentalist group Hizb ut-Tahrir
have called for a "bloodless military coup" in Islamabad and the
creation of the caliphate in which strict Islamic laws would be rigorously
enforced.
Members of the group, which describes itself
as the Liberation party in Britain but is banned in Pakistan, revealed last
week that it had targeted the country as a base from which to spread Islamic
rule across the world.
The Sunday Times has obtained the names of
a dozen British Hizb ut-Tahrir activists based in Lahore and Karachi, or commuting
between Britain and Pakistan. There are believed to be many more.
Tayyib Muqeem, an English teacher from Stoke-on-Trent,
said he had moved to Lahore to convert Pakistanis to the movement.
At Lahore's Superior College, where Muqeem
has set up a Hizb ut-Tahrir student group, he said the organisation's aim
was to subject Muslim and western countries to Islamic rule under sharia law,
"by force" if necessary.
In a caliphate, "every woman would have
to cover up" and stoning to death for adultery and the chopping off of
thieves' hands would be the law, he said.
He added that Islamic rule would be spread
through "indoctrination" and by "military means" if non-Muslim
countries refused to bow to it. "Waging war" would be part of the
caliphate's foreign policy.
One of Hizb ut-Tahrir's strategies in Pakistan
is to influence military officers, he revealed.
Shahzad Sheikh, a Pakistani recruit and the
group's official spokesman in Karachi, talked openly about persuading the
army to instigate a "bloodless coup" against the present government
who, he said, were "worse than the Taliban".
"It is the military who hold the power
(in Pakistan) and we are asking them to give their allegiance to Hizb ut-Tahrir,"
he said. "I can't explain to you in detail how we are trying to influence
the military . . . We never disclose our methodology of change. You may say
it's a coup."
In 2003 four army officers were arrested in
Pakistan on suspicion of being linked to extremist groups, although the groups
and men have not been named. A Hizb ut-Tahrir insider at the time claims they
were recruited by the organisation's "Pakistan team" while training
at Sandhurst.
The group is believed to have been set up
in Pakistan in the early 1990s by Imtiaz Malik, a British-born Pakistani who
may still be operating underground as its leader in the country. In 1999 a
call was sent to British Hizb ut-Tahrir members to move to Pakistan. This
prompted the movement of some of the UK's "top quality" activists
to south Asia.
"Pakistan was neglected and ignored until
it had a nuclear bomb and then the global leader realised it would be a good
strategic base for the caliphate," said Maajid Nawaz, one of the organisation's
pioneers in Pakistan, who has since renounced the group.
Nawaz claimed at least 10 British activists
were planted in each of Pakistan's main cities. "The traffic has been
increasing ever since and people are always going back and forth (to the UK),"
he added.
"Hizb ut-Tahrir sets the mood music for
suicide bombers to dance to," said Nawaz, who has now started an initiative
to "claim Pakistan back" from extremists.
Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a former professor in
Lahore who is now a security analyst, said: "This organisation was brought
to Pakistan by Pakistani Britishers. People were impressed that these young,
educated Brits were so committed to Islam that they came to Pakistan."
The group spreads its message through a secretive
network of small groups. Its recruitment campaigns among students are clearly
bearing fruit: evidence was found of cells in Lahore's major universities
and private colleges.
