Counterterrorism Blog

Following the attacks on 7/7/05, Prime Minister Tony Blair outlined a 12-point plan to combat terrorism that, among other things, called for the proscription of HT. Almost two years have passed and Hizb ut-Tahrir is still very much active. On his fifth day in office, and only a few days after the London and Glasgow bomb plots, new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was asked by Tory leader David Cameron why the extremist Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir has not yet been banned. Brown responded that “we can ban it under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005” but that it would require greater evidence, arguing that it will take more “than just one or two quotes.”

Of course, it is a lot more than “a few quotes” that leads people like Shiraz Maher or Ed Husain, both former HT members, to urge that HT be banned. So far the main opposition to banning HT has come from the Home Office, which argues that banning them would push them “underground”. Anyone who knows how Islamist groups like HT work knows that the real work they do has always been underground anyway; what they do openly is just the tip of the iceberg. Yet failing to proscribe HT gives them undue legitimacy, and has certainly not helped de-radicalize young Muslims.

Shouldn’t we learn from repeated “surprises” expressed by law enforcement agencies at every new terrorist plot, and how they “did not see it coming”? Clearly, their “engagement” with Islamists like HT and the Muslim Brotherhood has not been helpful in preventing new attacks. So far, it has been the terrorists’ own mistakes that saved Britain from even greater destruction.