Asia In Central Asia, the party has expanded since the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s from a small group to "one of the most powerful organizations" operating in Central Asia. The region itself has been called "the primary battleground" for the party. Uzbekistan is "the hub" of Hizb ut-Tahrir's activities in Central Asia, while its "headquarters" is now reportedly in Kyrgyzstan. Estimates of the party's size in Central Asia range from 15,000 to 100,000. Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned throughout Central Asia, and has been accused of terrorist activity or assisting in terrorist activity. Central Asian governments have been accused of torturing Hizb ut-Tahrir members and violating international law in their campaigns against the group. The party's "primary focus" in Central Asia is "socioeconomic and human rights issues", calling for "justice" against "corrupt and repressive state structures". From there it seeks to "guide" Central Asians towards support for the re-establishment of a Caliphate. It recruits from unemployed, pensioners, students and single mothers; "representatives of local power structures", who can protect party cells from surveillance and prosecution; and "law enforcement personnel" who can "facilitate access to sensitive information". Among the factors attributed to HT's success in the region are the religious and political "vacuum" of post-Soviet society there; the party's strong organization, use of local languages; the answers it provides to problems of poverty, unemployment, corruption, drug addiction, prostitution and lack of education; its call for unification of the Central Asian states. Hizb ut-Tahrir was first started in Central Asia in Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan and most HT members in the former Soviet Union are ethnic Uzbeks. In addition to the five ex-Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, the adjacent republic of Afghanistan, which was never part of the Soviet Union, and Chinese province of Xinjiang, are (or at least traditionally were in the case of Xinjiang) Muslim majority areas of Central Asia. Afghanistan HT supports the Taliban against what it calls "the two enemies of Islam and the Muslims, America and Britain, waged an unjust war against the poor and defenceless Afghan people (...)". Kazakhstan HT was banned there in 2005 and has many fewer members in Kazakhstan than in neighboring countries—no more than 300 as of 2004. Kyrgyzstan Hizb ut-Tahrir was banned in Kyrgyzstan around late 2004, but as that time there were an estimated 3,000–5,000 HT members there. Until sometime before 2004,