Bangladesh: Fundamentalism
Goons or Terrorists? Bangladesh Decides
by B Raman [from Asia Times]
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC10Df04.html
Terrorists in Bangladeshi territory? Yes, of course. But al-Qaeda in Bangladesh? No, definitely not.
That is the latest position of the government of Khaleda Zia, the Bangladeshi prime minister, in the face of growing international pressure spearheaded by member countries of the European Union to act against terrorist groups operating from Bangladeshi territory.
The government banned, under international pressure, the Jagrata Muslim Janata, Bangladesh (JMJB), which also operates under the name of the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), on February 23, and arrested some of its leaders and cadres, but not the most important - Moulana Abdur Rahman, a former activist of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), which is a member of Zia's ruling coalition, and who is now the amir of the banned organization, and Siddiqur Rahman, also known as Bangla Bhai (Bangla brother), its operational chief.
Until February 23, the government denied the very existence of these organizations and of Bangla Bhai, who used to be described by it as a figment of the media's imagination. Faced with the threat of aid curtailment from the EU, the government has now been forced to admit that these organizations and Bangla Bhai exist and were creating a state of anarchy in Bangladesh. However, its action has been half-hearted and does not seem to be due to its conviction on the need to put a stop to the use of its territory by all terrorist organizations - domestic or international - and to closely monitor the functioning of the large number of Saudi and Kuwaiti-funded madrassas and international Islamic universities which have come up in its territory to spread Wahhabism among the Muslims of Bangladesh and Southeast Asia.
While the government now admits that some of the activities of the banned organizations, such as acts of violence directed against non-Muslims and secular-minded Muslims, amounted to terrorism, it is trying to avoid blaming them for acts of political terrorism directed against the leaders and cadres of the opposition parties, such as their repeated attempts to kill Sheikh Hassina, former prime minister, and the recent assassination of Shah M S Kibria, a former finance minister, who was a close personal friend of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It was reportedly Kibria's assassination that set off alarm bells in New Delhi and contributed to the decision of Singh to postpone his visit to Dhaka to attend a regional summit.
After having initially described the arrested leaders and cadres as terrorists, the government is now trying to play down the gravity of their past acts of terrorism. At the same time, it continues to deny, as it was doing before February 23, that survivors of al-Qaeda and the International Islamic Front (IIF) have been given sanctuary in Bangladeshi territory; or that an organization called the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), which is a member of Osama bin Laden's IIF, has been active in Bangladesh and training recruits from the Arakan area of Myanmar and other Southeast Asian countries or that the local madrassas and international Islamic universities have become the breeding ground of jihadi terrorism.
The Bangladesh branch of the HUJI of Pakistan has been active since the 1990s, and one of its leaders signed bin Laden's fatwa of 1998 calling for attacks against the US and Israel. The annual reports titled "Patterns of Global Terrorism" of the US State Department have repeatedly referred to the activities of the HUJI from Bangladeshi territory. Even its latest report, submitted to US Congress last April 29, says as follows:
Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami, Bangladesh (HUJI-B) (Movement of Islamic Holy War). Description: The mission of HUJI-B, led by Shauqat Osman, is to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh. HUJI-B has connections to the Pakistani militant groups Harakat ul-Jihadi-Islami (HUJI) and Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HUM), who advocate similar objectives in Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir. Activities: HUJI-B was accused of stabbing a senior Bangladeshi journalist in November 2000 for making a documentary on the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh. HUJI-B was suspected in the assassination attempt in July 2000 of Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Strength: HUJI-B has an estimated cadre strength of more than several thousand members. Location/area of operation: Operates and trains members in Bangladesh, where it maintains at least six camps. External aid: Funding of the HUJI-B comes primarily from madrassas in Bangladesh. The group also has ties to militants in Pakistan that may provide another funding source.
Since September 11, 2001, there have been persistent reports from secret as well as open (the United States' Time magazine and the Far Eastern Economic Review, for example) sources that at least 200, if not more, survivors of al-Qaeda and other components of the IIF, many of them originating from Southeast Asia, have shifted to Bangladesh and have been given sanctuaries there by the HUJI-B and other jihadi terrorist organizations.
There have also been reports that due to the increased monitoring of the activities of Pakistani madrassas by US intelligence, recruits from Southeast Asia are now being taken to the madrassas in Bangladesh for religious education and training.
On December 10, 2003, a Canadian media organization disseminated edited extracts of a report on the internal security situation in Bangladesh, prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which it had obtained under the Access to Information Act. The extracts as disseminated by it said that the government of Bangladesh was not doing enough to prevent the country from becoming a haven for Islamic terrorists in South Asia and expressed its concern over the activities of extremists suspected to be connected to al-Qaeda. It said the government of Bangladesh was unwilling to crack down on terrorism and referred to the likelihood of dangers to Canadian aid agencies in Bangladesh. In a statement issued on December 11, 2003, the Bangladesh Foreign Office strongly denied the contents of the CSIS report. It said, "The contents of the report are far from the reality on the ground. The government remains firmly committed to combating terrorism. Some quarters are bent on tarnishing the peaceful image of Bangladesh."
In a separate statement issued in the Canadian capital the same day, Bangladesh's high commissioner in Ottawa, Mohsin Ali Khan, denied that his country had become a terrorist haven and asserted that his government was very "conscious of its responsibility to protect its citizens. We condemn terrorism in any country, in any form, in any place. Bangladesh is against any terrorist attack and it will not allow its soil to be used by any terrorist group."
This position was reiterated by Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Morshed Khan in a statement issued on February 26. He said, "There may be some local goons, working in the name of religion, who are being hunted down. There is a difference between international terrorists and local goons.There are no international terrorists in the country."
An oft-reiterated contention of the Bangladeshi authorities is that if there were al-Qaeda or pro-al-Qaeda terrorists in Bangladesh territory, by now they would have been involved in some act of international terrorism somewhere or the other. According to them, the fact that there have been no instances of the involvement of terrorists based in Bangladesh in any act of international terrorism showed that there were no international terrorists based in its territory.
It needs to be recalled that the Pakistani authorities used to take up a similar position and deny the presence of pro-al-Qaeda international terrorists in their territory. The investigation into the explosions near the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in August 1998 showed that some of the perpetrators had gone from Pakistan or Afghanistan. This weakened Pakistan's denials. The international community ultimately found after September 11, 2001, that the planning for these strikes in the US had been made from Karachi and other places in Pakistan by terrorist elements such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, whose presence and activities in Pakistani territory Islamabad used to deny.
B Raman is additional secretary (retired), cabinet secretariat, government of India, and currently director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai, and distinguished fellow and convener, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter.
E-mail: itschen36@gmail.com. (Copyright B Raman, 2005)
by B Raman [from Asia Times]
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC10Df04.html
Terrorists in Bangladeshi territory? Yes, of course. But al-Qaeda in Bangladesh? No, definitely not.
That is the latest position of the government of Khaleda Zia, the Bangladeshi prime minister, in the face of growing international pressure spearheaded by member countries of the European Union to act against terrorist groups operating from Bangladeshi territory.
The government banned, under international pressure, the Jagrata Muslim Janata, Bangladesh (JMJB), which also operates under the name of the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), on February 23, and arrested some of its leaders and cadres, but not the most important - Moulana Abdur Rahman, a former activist of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), which is a member of Zia's ruling coalition, and who is now the amir of the banned organization, and Siddiqur Rahman, also known as Bangla Bhai (Bangla brother), its operational chief.
Until February 23, the government denied the very existence of these organizations and of Bangla Bhai, who used to be described by it as a figment of the media's imagination. Faced with the threat of aid curtailment from the EU, the government has now been forced to admit that these organizations and Bangla Bhai exist and were creating a state of anarchy in Bangladesh. However, its action has been half-hearted and does not seem to be due to its conviction on the need to put a stop to the use of its territory by all terrorist organizations - domestic or international - and to closely monitor the functioning of the large number of Saudi and Kuwaiti-funded madrassas and international Islamic universities which have come up in its territory to spread Wahhabism among the Muslims of Bangladesh and Southeast Asia.
While the government now admits that some of the activities of the banned organizations, such as acts of violence directed against non-Muslims and secular-minded Muslims, amounted to terrorism, it is trying to avoid blaming them for acts of political terrorism directed against the leaders and cadres of the opposition parties, such as their repeated attempts to kill Sheikh Hassina, former prime minister, and the recent assassination of Shah M S Kibria, a former finance minister, who was a close personal friend of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It was reportedly Kibria's assassination that set off alarm bells in New Delhi and contributed to the decision of Singh to postpone his visit to Dhaka to attend a regional summit.
After having initially described the arrested leaders and cadres as terrorists, the government is now trying to play down the gravity of their past acts of terrorism. At the same time, it continues to deny, as it was doing before February 23, that survivors of al-Qaeda and the International Islamic Front (IIF) have been given sanctuary in Bangladeshi territory; or that an organization called the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), which is a member of Osama bin Laden's IIF, has been active in Bangladesh and training recruits from the Arakan area of Myanmar and other Southeast Asian countries or that the local madrassas and international Islamic universities have become the breeding ground of jihadi terrorism.
The Bangladesh branch of the HUJI of Pakistan has been active since the 1990s, and one of its leaders signed bin Laden's fatwa of 1998 calling for attacks against the US and Israel. The annual reports titled "Patterns of Global Terrorism" of the US State Department have repeatedly referred to the activities of the HUJI from Bangladeshi territory. Even its latest report, submitted to US Congress last April 29, says as follows:
Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami, Bangladesh (HUJI-B) (Movement of Islamic Holy War). Description: The mission of HUJI-B, led by Shauqat Osman, is to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh. HUJI-B has connections to the Pakistani militant groups Harakat ul-Jihadi-Islami (HUJI) and Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HUM), who advocate similar objectives in Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir. Activities: HUJI-B was accused of stabbing a senior Bangladeshi journalist in November 2000 for making a documentary on the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh. HUJI-B was suspected in the assassination attempt in July 2000 of Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Strength: HUJI-B has an estimated cadre strength of more than several thousand members. Location/area of operation: Operates and trains members in Bangladesh, where it maintains at least six camps. External aid: Funding of the HUJI-B comes primarily from madrassas in Bangladesh. The group also has ties to militants in Pakistan that may provide another funding source.
Since September 11, 2001, there have been persistent reports from secret as well as open (the United States' Time magazine and the Far Eastern Economic Review, for example) sources that at least 200, if not more, survivors of al-Qaeda and other components of the IIF, many of them originating from Southeast Asia, have shifted to Bangladesh and have been given sanctuaries there by the HUJI-B and other jihadi terrorist organizations.
There have also been reports that due to the increased monitoring of the activities of Pakistani madrassas by US intelligence, recruits from Southeast Asia are now being taken to the madrassas in Bangladesh for religious education and training.
On December 10, 2003, a Canadian media organization disseminated edited extracts of a report on the internal security situation in Bangladesh, prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which it had obtained under the Access to Information Act. The extracts as disseminated by it said that the government of Bangladesh was not doing enough to prevent the country from becoming a haven for Islamic terrorists in South Asia and expressed its concern over the activities of extremists suspected to be connected to al-Qaeda. It said the government of Bangladesh was unwilling to crack down on terrorism and referred to the likelihood of dangers to Canadian aid agencies in Bangladesh. In a statement issued on December 11, 2003, the Bangladesh Foreign Office strongly denied the contents of the CSIS report. It said, "The contents of the report are far from the reality on the ground. The government remains firmly committed to combating terrorism. Some quarters are bent on tarnishing the peaceful image of Bangladesh."
In a separate statement issued in the Canadian capital the same day, Bangladesh's high commissioner in Ottawa, Mohsin Ali Khan, denied that his country had become a terrorist haven and asserted that his government was very "conscious of its responsibility to protect its citizens. We condemn terrorism in any country, in any form, in any place. Bangladesh is against any terrorist attack and it will not allow its soil to be used by any terrorist group."
This position was reiterated by Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Morshed Khan in a statement issued on February 26. He said, "There may be some local goons, working in the name of religion, who are being hunted down. There is a difference between international terrorists and local goons.There are no international terrorists in the country."
An oft-reiterated contention of the Bangladeshi authorities is that if there were al-Qaeda or pro-al-Qaeda terrorists in Bangladesh territory, by now they would have been involved in some act of international terrorism somewhere or the other. According to them, the fact that there have been no instances of the involvement of terrorists based in Bangladesh in any act of international terrorism showed that there were no international terrorists based in its territory.
It needs to be recalled that the Pakistani authorities used to take up a similar position and deny the presence of pro-al-Qaeda international terrorists in their territory. The investigation into the explosions near the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in August 1998 showed that some of the perpetrators had gone from Pakistan or Afghanistan. This weakened Pakistan's denials. The international community ultimately found after September 11, 2001, that the planning for these strikes in the US had been made from Karachi and other places in Pakistan by terrorist elements such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, whose presence and activities in Pakistani territory Islamabad used to deny.
B Raman is additional secretary (retired), cabinet secretariat, government of India, and currently director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai, and distinguished fellow and convener, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter.
E-mail: itschen36@gmail.com. (Copyright B Raman, 2005)
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