CANBERRA, August 8, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia will be banned if intelligence authorities judge it a terrorist threat, the Australian PM said Monday, August 8, days after the UK declared it would ban the controversial Islamic group.

"If ASIO tells us that an organization like this ... does represent a threat, then we'll take action to ban it," Howard told Macquarie Radio, CNSNews reported Monday.

ASIO, the country's top spy agency is currently investigating Hizb ut-Tahrir, which operates in Sydney.

On the other hand, Hizb ut-Tahrir Australian spokesman Wassim Doureihi said the group will cooperate fully with investigators.

Doureihi confirmed the group's support for the resistance against US-led troops in Iraq and said he did not condemn suicide bombings, according to CNSNews.

On Sunday, the prime minister had announced plans to enlist the help of moderate Muslim leaders to expose radical groups operating in their communities.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced Friday, August 5, that Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) and another Islamic group, the Savior Sect -- the successor to Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed's Al-Muhajiroun -- were to be banned.

"Hizb ut-Tahrir is a non-violent political party," spokesman Imran Waheed had said.

CNSNews quoted Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman in Britain, Nasreen Nawas as saying that the ban aimed to curtail "legitimate Islamic political debate."

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a movement founded in the Middle East in the 1953, according to the group’s Web site.

It established itself in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia 10 years ago and reportedly wants to create an Islamic state in the region.

It defines itself as a "political party whose ideology is Islam, so politics is its work and Islam is its ideology. It works within the Ummah (Muslim nation) and together with her, so that she adopts Islam as her cause and is led to restore the Khilafah (Islamic Caliphate)."

Aussie Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said that from what he had seen publicly, Hizb ut-Tahrir "suggests some overriding allegiance to a pan-Islamic cause."

This should be of concern to any Australian, he said.

"We want to marginalize those people who don't have any commitment to this nation and believe they have some other overriding commitment in relation to the allegiance that they give."

The group is already restricted in Germany, Russia and in parts of the Middle East and Central Asia. It is not, however, on the US State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Howard has also expressed understanding for the British government's plan to deport what he called ‘foreign-born radicals’ who don't embrace their new country's values.

"I think what Tony Blair is talking about, quite rightly, is that if somebody has come from another country and has failed to properly embrace the values of this society, his society - and I would apply the same to Australia - then the idea of taking away their citizenship is one that ought to be looked at," he said Sunday.

"When somebody comes to this country, you enter into a mutual obligation understanding," he added.