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Palestinian Group Sounds Like Al-Qaeda

[Christian Science Monitor] Ilene R. Prusher - A new fundamentalist player is emerging in Palestinian politics. The group sounds like Hamas - or even al-Qaeda - but doesn't support suicide bombings or secret militias. Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) is now filling a hole left by Hamas in the West Bank. In many of the places where Hizb ut-Tahrir is popular - the party says they're active in 45 countries - governments often see them as a feeder organization to more extreme groups. James Brandon, a senior research fellow at the Center for Social Cohesion in London, says that party officials worldwide don't advocate or organize violent attacks. "But...they act as a conveyor belt organization, in which they attract people and radicalize them, and then those people eventually move on, reject the Hizb ut-Tahrir method, and start looking to al-Qaeda." The group is banned in many countries, including Egypt and much of the Middle East, Germany, Pakistan, and Russia. It also came under investigation in Britain after the London bombings in July 2005.
2008-01-24 01:00:00
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