Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

TAHRIR AL ISLAMI, AL • 655among both students and faculty. Sheikh Taqieddin al Nabhani, aformer judge of the Islamic law court of Haifa, who settled in Nablusunder Jordanian control following the 1948 war, founded the IslamicLiberation Party in 1953, which came to include many membersof the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan. This party went beyond theMuslim Brotherhood in teaching the necessity of seizing state power,eliminating rival parties, and imposing observance of Islamic law byforce. While the HT remains banned in Egypt, it maintains an undergroundpresence there, while its central organization is now locatedin Lebanon where it enjoys status as a legal political party.After Nasser’s death in 1970, the new Egyptian president, AnwarSadat, released those Muslim Brothers still imprisoned within Egyptand allowed exiled Egyptian members of the Brotherhood to return toEgypt. A Jordanian of Palestinian origin named Salih Siriya formedcells of the Islamic Liberation Party in Cairo, recruiting around 140members. On 18 April 1974 Siriya and 20 armed followers took overthe Egyptian Military Technical College in the Heliopolis suburbof Cairo, killing 11 and injuring 27 people. The group apparentlywanted to assassinate Sadat, who had been scheduled to visit the college,as a first step in fomenting a popular Islamic uprising. Siriyahad visited Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in June 1973 andreceived funds to overthrow Sadat. In 1976 Siriya and his chief aidewere executed for their roles in this uprising. In 1977 al Nabhani diedin Lebanon and was succeeded by Abdul-Qadim Zallum, who in turnwas succeeded upon his death in 2003 by Ata Khalil Abu-Rashta.Despite former Libyan support for the HT, Libyan agents assassinateda Libyan HT leader in London on 11 April 1980 while arrestingand killing known HT members in Libya from 1980 onward.The HT rejects both capitalism and democracy and seeks to reestablisha Pan-Islamic caliphate to enforce Islamic law within all Muslimnations. While the HT is known to have resorted to arms only onfour occasions, with coup attempts in Jordan and Syria in 1969 andin Egypt in 1974, and one attack on Libyan diplomats in Lebanon in1985, for most of its history it has concentrated instead on buildingbranches in various nations and recruiting and indoctrinating newmembers. Although the government of Uzbekistan blamed the HTfor several bombings in 2004, neither the United States nor GreatBritain could confirm those claims; therefore, the HT has not beendesignated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States