Armored vehicles move during a joint anti-terrorist exercise held by China and Kyrgyzstan frontier forces in Kizilsu Kirgiz Prefecture, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, June 27, 2017.

BISHKEK, Sept. 21 ( Xinhua) -- The Kyrgyz special services detained a leader of a cell of the Hizb ut-Tahrir religious extremist organization, the State Committee for National Security of the Kyrgyz Republic said Friday.

The 44-year-old detainee, who was previously convicted and served a sentence in a colony settlement, is one of the leaders of a cell of the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization in Kyrgyzstan's northern Karakol town, according to the press service of the committee.

During the authorized searches at the residence of the detainee, the security officers seized a large number of banned extremist materials of the Hizb ut-Tahrir activities, it said.

A criminal case has been initiated, the committee said.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a religious extremist organization, which describes its ideology as Islam and its aim as the re-establishment of the Islamic Caliphate or Islamic state to resume the Islamic way of life.

The organization has been banned in many countries including China, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.