LONDON, Dec 24: Prime Minister Tony Blair has been forced to shelve plans to ban Hizb-ut-Tahrir after opposition from senior police officers and the Home Office, the Sunday Observer has reported.

On a trip to Pakistan last month, Prime Minister Blair is understood to have given personal assurances to President Pervez Musharraf that the ban would go ahead. The paper said President Musharraf made clear to him that outlawing the group -- banned in Pakistan since 2003 -- must be a priority for Britain.

Plans to ban Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the radical group, was dropped following intense discussions between Number 10 and legal advisers. Counter-terrorism sources said Tony Blair had been warned that banning the group, which campaigns for Britain to become a caliphate would boost its recruitments if the group appealed against the move.

The decision is a significant personal blow to Mr Blair, who announced his intention to outlaw it shortly after the London bombings on July 7, 2005, as part of a 12-point strategy to counter Muslim extremism.

The debate over Hizb-ut-Tahrir’s right to operate in Britain comes as its influence is growing. The group has a presence in 40 countries. But it is banned in Germany, Russia, the Netherlands, Sudan and in almost every Arab country.

Last month a BBC investigation claimed to expose its methods to radicalise young British Muslims. It reported that in Croydon, south London, Hizb-ut-Tahrir encouraged an undercover researcher posing as a recruit to commit crimes to ‘prove his loyalty’. Hizb-ut-Tahrir has denied this and said it intended to sue the BBC.

The group’s British wing has distanced itself from the more radical views of international sister organisations such as those expressed on leaflets handed out by Hizb-ut-Tahrir supporters in Copenhagen which claimed suicide bombings in Israel were ‘legitimate’ acts of ‘martyrdom’.

The British wing has also distanced itself from its former leader, Omar Bakri Mohammad, who left the group to set up the more extreme Al Muhajiroun organisation in 1996 and is in exile in Lebanon after being caught on tape praising the London bombers as the ‘fantastic four’.