Hizb al-Tahrir, a radical transnational Islamist group that is seeking to re-establish the caliphate in Yemen, held a symposium Nov. 11 in Sanaa. Hundreds of youth, tribal sheikhs and scholars — including a prominent Yemeni qadi (Islamic judge) Abdulwahhab Al-Hitar — attended. This event signals a major shift in strategy for Hizb al-Tahrir — which translates as Party of Liberation and is pronounced "Hizb-ut-Tahrir" — and represents a public comeback in the Middle East after four decades of operating clandestinely as an outlawed political group. The presence of one of the most senior Yemeni judges, who is also a member of the Yemeni Supreme Judicial Council, at the event indicates that the Yemeni government allowed the gathering. The involvement of al-Hitar, who Yemeni sources tell STRATFOR is the government's liaison with militant and radical Islamist groups, suggests that Sanaa is seeking to manage militant Islamism in the country by introducing another player in Islamist politics. By allowing the nonviolent HT to re-establish itself, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh might be trying to draw youth away from al Qaeda-type militancy. In any case, the re-emergence of this group will add to the complexity of Islamist politics in Yemen. The event represents a turning point for HT, which might have chosen to resurface at this time for the following reasons: 1) It might be taking advantage of the situation in Yemen, which unlike most other Arab states, is a democracy (albeit a weak one). 2) Mainstream moderate Islamist forces such as al-Islah have been unsuccessful in making any major political gains, and al Qaeda-linked militant Islamists are on the run due to Washington-Sanaa cooperation. This facilitates HT in its efforts at creating public appeal for its radical — but nonviolent — political program among the masses. 3) The group might be taking advantage of Saleh's signal that he is willing to tolerate Islamist activism as long as it does not use force as a political tool. Though HT might have taken advantage of an opportunity to place itself on the Yemeni political landscape, it will be difficult for the group to create a significant niche in the short term because the universe of Yemeni Islamism already is saturated with multiple actors and trends. The mainstream al-Islah Party, the Neo-Salafists and the jihadists will try to thwart the advance of HT onto what traditionally has been their turf. Furthermore, ideological, sectarian and religious disagreements also will fuel the intra-Islamist debate. The government might be trying to exploit these tensions in its efforts at containing militancy. Its emergence in Yemen and the gradual opening of the political systems in other Arab states likely will prompt the group to try to stage a comeback in the wider arena of the Middle East. Its transnational operational character and its goals of a pan-Islamist caliphate represent a threat to Arab and other Muslim nation-states. The most powerful tool it has at its disposal is a nonviolent approach calling for a radical political transformation of the Muslim world. A Palestinian Islamic jurist by the name of Sheikh Taqi al-Deen al-Nabhani (1909-77) founded HT with a group of several other prominent Palestinians in Jerusalem in 1952. The group identifies itself as a political party with an Islamic ideology. This is different from other Islamist groups that are not solely engaged in politics. A former judge in the Shariah Court of Jerusalem, al-Nabhani was deeply influenced by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1924 and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. He also held strong reservations about the secular-nationalist agenda of Arab governments, and what in his view was the pacifistic approach of the older Islamist movement, the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen (Muslim Brotherhood). Al-Nabhani wrote a prolific body of literature — including a draft constitution comprising 180 articles outlining his envisioned caliphate. HT's entire ideology is based on al-Nabhani's philosophy, and the group is active in many countries across the Muslim world and among expatriate communities in many non-Muslim countries. It is perhaps most active in the post-Soviet Muslim majority republics of Central Asia, where it appears to have found a large following among the lower and middle classes. HT is led by Emir Ata Abu Rishtah, who is based in Jordan and is assisted by a central leadership committee. The various international chapters of HT have their own regional and local emirs. Membership in the party is highly selective and is predicated upon a novice's successful completion of a lengthy and rigorous study program. Having been outlawed and brutally suppressed by many Muslim governments, the party maintains near absolute secrecy about its day-to-day operations. In certain areas, a given study group (the basic party unit, comprising about five novices and a director) is unaware of the actions of its counterpart units. It does have official media outlets: Khilafah.com, headquartered in London, is its principal global mouthpiece. From what we have been able to discern, it largely relies fiscally upon members, who are obligated to pay a certain percentage of their income to the party, and on contributions from supporters. Denouncing both democracy and nationalism as the two leading hurdles toward the revival of Islam and Muslims in the form of a unified political entity, HT is calling for the re-establishment of a transnational caliphate through a bi-modal approach. In a given state, HT operates horizontally as well vertically. First, it seeks to create a popular support base for its manifesto among the horizontal masses through conferences, distributing leaflets and literature and organizing study circles. Second, it tries to tap the vertical power structures of the state in search of sympathetic individuals within the military and civilian sectors. It seeks to leverage both popular support and support from within the incumbent government into a popular revolution leading to a coup d'etat, which will oust the existing leadership and transfer power to HT, which will then install the envisioned caliphate. The group's approach is inimitable and strongly at odds with jihadists who advocate using violent means to overthrow an incumbent government. It also is at odds with those who advocate the establishment of Islamic states in various Muslim countries through electoral politics. HT is not a militant group, because it rejects the al Qaeda approach to effecting regime change. It cannot be classified as "moderate" either, however, because it calls for radical, extra-constitutional means to achieve the envisioned Islamic state. HT rejects the division of the Muslim world along the lines of the nation-state. Instead, it calls for a transnational caliphate, which is in essence the Muslim world organized as a single political entity under a common leadership. It hopes to achieve this goal by eventually doing away with current borders. HT's unique approach poses a serious problem for Arab and Muslim governments in terms of responding to the party's activities. On one hand, they cannot make the same case against its members as they could in the case of jihadist militants. Second, given the current circumstances, if governments crack down hard on HT, it likely would serve to expand its popularity: The masses would view party activists as victims of oppressive governments. At a time when militant Islamists are on the run and moderate Islamists are willing to work within the system — and as a result appear to be losing credibility — HT has an opportunity to advance and possibly capture the center stage of Islamism. That it pulled off an event in the heart of Yemen suggests that it has been able to develop some kind of support base during its time as an underground organization. It is bound to intensify the intra-Islamist rivalries in Yemen, which the government likely will try to exploit in an effort to contain violent Islamist forces. This, and the opening up of political systems, likely will prompt HT to surface in other areas of the Middle East in the near future.