Better known as Hizb ut-Tahrir, the group aims to establish a pan-national Muslim state, or caliphate.

China says the Hizb ut-Tahrir is a terrorist group, and claims it operates in the far western region of Xinjiang, home to some eight million Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighurs, many of whom chafe under Chinese rule.

However, the group, which was founded in Jerusalem in 1953 and is active in about 40 countries, including Britain, Australia and Indonesia, says it does not espouse violence.

It accuses China of playing up the threat as an excuse to further crack down on restive Xinjiang, especially ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

'Strike hard against the Islamic Liberation Party' and 'The Islamic Liberation Party is a violent terrorist organisation', read government-posted signs in Kashgar, written in red in both Chinese and the Uighurs' Arabic-based script.

Beijing accuses militant Uighurs of working with Al-Qaeda to use terror to bring about an independent state called East Turkestan.

However, the emergence of Hizb ut-Tahrir is a recent phenomenon in the region.

'For most Uighurs who are activists, though some of them are very religious in Islam, their main goal is sovereignty for Xinjiang. Hizb ut-Tahrir does not support that,' said Mr Dru Gladney, president of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College, California, and a Uighur expert.

'They support a worldwide caliphate, not any one independent region.'

Hizb ut-Tahrir operates legally in other countries such as Malaysia, Denmark and Britain, where it has largely kept out of illegitimate activities and has engaged in humanitarian causes.

However, it is outlawed in countries such as Russia and Uzbekistan, where it has been blamed for violence.

Last November, China's Xinhua news agency announced sentences ranging from death to life in jail for six Uighurs accused of 'splittism and organising and leading terrorist groups', and implicated Hizb ut-Tahrir.

One of the men was found guilty of 'proactively carrying out extremist religious activities and promoting jihad', establishing a terrorist training base and preparing to set up an Islamic caliphate, Xinhua reported then.

In April, the Xinjiang government blamed Hizb ut-Tahrir for inciting protests in Hotan, Xinjiang, in which the World Uighur Congress said about 1,000 people took to the streets.

'The organisation is extremely resilient, and its influence, although limited to southern Xinjiang, seems to be growing,' said Mr Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch.

As in another strife-hit Chinese region, Tibet, many Uighurs in Xinjiang resent the growing economic and cultural impact of Han Chinese.

Hizb ut-Tahrir says it is being targeted by Beijing as part of the Chinese government's 'oppression' of Islamic groups in Xinjiang.

REUTERS