Bangladesh Assessment 2003

Continuous reportage during the first three quarters of year 2003 indicating the existence of Al Qaeda operatives in Bangladesh and their subversive activity in conjunction with local Islamist groups validated claims that the country had emerged as a major safe haven for Islamist terrorist formations. The broad trends discernible in this context during the year 2002 remained largely unchanged in the first three quarters of 2003, creating a major challenge for the region, and specifically posing a serious threat to India’s internal security and stability, especially its North Eastern and Eastern parts. Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), further tightened its hold over Bangladesh by harnessing its past linkages with Islamist fundamentalists and certain sections of the military and political establishment. Internally, various Islamist groups remained active and enlarged their subversive agenda. Discontent in the Chittagong Hill Tracts has also re-emerged, as the Khaleda Zia regime failed to make any attempt to implement the Chittagong Hill Tracts Treaty (CHTT) of 1997.

There has been spurt in the activities of Islamist extremists in the year 2003. Some of the major incidents were:

• August 14: Police in Saudi Arabia arrest 21 terror suspects, including 11 Bangladeshis, from a house in the southern province of Jizan.

• June 16: A Time report in its June 16, 2003, issue indicates that Islamist extremists in Bangladesh may be attempting to make a radioactive "dirty" bomb.

• May 18: Police arrest five suspected Al Qaeda terrorists from the Deudoba Baniapara area in Rangpur. An unspecified amount of Saudi Rials (currency) is also recovered from their possession.

• May 7: HT cadres set ablaze a mosque of their opponents at Shakokati village, Gouranadi subdivision, under Barisal district, to avenge the killing of a HT cadre at Bhurghata on May 5.

• May 5: A Hizbut Tauhid (HT) member is killed and 25 others, including some Tauhid cadres, are injured in a clash between the HT and villagers at Bhurghata in the Barisal district.

• March 15: Media reports indicated that there are at least 12 Islamist militant groups and some of them are training youth in armed combat. These militants are suspected to be involved in a series of bomb blasts in the preceding four months.

• March 11: Police destroyed a training centre of the Islamist group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JuM), Bangladesh, in the Hujrapur area of Chapainawabganj district. Five cadres were arrested and manuals on 'Jehad', 'Talibanism' and guidelines to make time bombs were recovered.
• March 1: A policeman was killed and at least 10 others injured in bomb blasts at the International Trade Fair in Khulna.
• February 25: Police recovered 16 bombs from the residence of a religious leader, Maulana Fazlul Karim, in Charmonai, near Barisal, on the first day of an annual religious celebration.
• February 13: At least seven powerful bombs exploded in quick succession inside a house in Chhoto Gurgola area of Dinajpur town, leaving three persons injured. Police recovered four revolvers, 50 rounds of ammunition, six petrol bombs, bomb-making chemicals and a 'subscription' receipt of an unnamed Islamist group from the blast site. Two persons, said to be employed at a madrassa (seminary), were arrested.
• January 17: At least eight persons were killed and eight others wounded in a bomb blast at a carnival in Dariapur village, Tangail district, 70 kilometres north of the capital Dhaka.

For the first time, an Islamist extremist organisation, the Shahadat-e-Al-Hikma (SAH) was proscribed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)-led coalition Government with effect from February 9, a day after it was formally launched in Rajshahi by its convenor Kawsar Hossain Siddique. This was also the first official acceptance by the Government of the existence of Islamist extremists in the country. Regarding the SAH, it is significant that:

• While some reports claim that this group was newly formed and funded by the Pakistan-based mafia don Dawood Ibrahim, there is some evidence that it had been in existence in Bangladesh for at least the last couple of years, and was only formally launched on February 8, 2003.
• The ban was imposed after opposition parties demanded an inquiry into the February 13 Dinajpur blasts.
• SAH convenor Siddique has claimed that it is ‘a political party’ with 10,000 ‘commandos’ and 25,000 ‘fighters’ working in the country to bring an ‘Islamic revolution’.
• According to reports in the vernacular daily, Bhorer Kagoj, Siddique has also alleged that a prominent member of Begum Khaleda Zia's cabinet Barrister Moudud Ahmed, Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, had helped SAH.

A newly formed group, the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JM), is alleged to have been involved in the February 13 bomb blast in Dinajpur. The JM came into focus on February 13 when seven bombs exploded at one of its hideouts in the Chhoto Gurgola area of Dinajpur town while its cadres were reportedly manufacturing them. Later it was found that this group planned to set off blasts during the International Mother Language Day programmes in different northern towns of Bangladesh.

While some reports indicate that the JM is the youth wing of HuJI others believe it to be the youth wing of a hitherto unknown group, al-Mujahidin. The outfit was formed sometime in the 1990s allegedly with financial support from extremists in Saudi Arabia. It also gets its funds from a number of international NGOs working in Bangladesh, including the Al-Falah Aaam Development Organisation. Abdul Halim of Dhaka leads this group in Bangladesh. Its northern region head is Anwar Sadat, who is known as Obaidullah in Dinajpur, Abbas in Natore and Rajshahi, Amin in Panchagarh and Khalilur Rahman in Joypurhat. The key objective of this group is to establish the rule of the holy Quran and the Hadith through an Islamic revolution. They have reportedly training centers in 57 districts of Bangladesh.

JM extremists are also suspected to be linked to the Jamaat-e-Islami, which is part of the four-party ruling coalition in Bangladesh. Several militants arrested after the Joypurhat incident have also admitted that they have close links with Jamaat leaders. Moreover, the JM and Al-Hikma are also linked as similar papers and leaflets have been found from the hideouts of both the organizations.

Islamist extremists in Bangladesh have for long maintained operational linkages with a number of foreign Islamist groups. Investigations into the January 22, 2002, terrorist attack on the American Centre in Kolkata, capital of the Indian State of West Bengal, brought these linkages to the fore.

• The Asif Reza Commando Force (ARCF), which claimed responsibility for the attack, is essentially a criminal group allied to the Harkat-ul-Jehadi-e-Islami, Bangladesh (HuJI-BD), which has very close links with the ISI.
• The arrest of Aftab Ansari alias Farhan Malik, prime accused in the American Centre attack, led to further disclosures regarding the international linkages between the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the HuJI based in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
• Aftab Ansari played a key role in the July 25, 2001 abduction of Kolkata-based businessman Partha Pratim Roy Barman, who was subsequently released on July 30, 2001, after reportedly paying a ransom amount of INR 37.5 million in Dubai through the Hawala network.
• It was out of this money that Omar Sheikh – convicted by a Pakistan court in the Daniel Pearl murder case – is said to have wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the alleged ringleader of the hijackers in the 9/11 multiple terrorist attacks.

Although the Government has reacted fiercely to any suggestion that Bangladesh has become a new safe haven and theatre of activities for the Al Qaeda and other Islamist fundamentalist groups, reports from Asian and Western intelligence services have suggested otherwise:

• According to other reports from Asian security services, militants from the Jemaah Islamiah – which is connected to the Al Qaeda and seeks to set up a gigantic Islamic state encompassing Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and southern Philippines – are also hiding out in these camps, which were set up in the early 1990s to train rebels from the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar's Rakhine State.
• The Jemaah Islamiah militants in hiding in southeastern Bangladesh are believed to be mostly citizens of Malaysia and Singapore.

There is evidence that the right-wing regime, which came to power after the general elections of October 2001, has created a more favourable atmosphere for the operation of various extremist forces in the country. While the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami – which is the major alliance partner of the ruling BNP – may not be directly responsible for subversive or terrorist activities, its inclusion in the coalition Government has meant that other radical groups feel they now enjoy protection from the authorities and can act with impunity.

The HuJI, for example, is reported to have 15,000 members of whom 2,000 are described as ‘hard core’. Bangladeshi Hindus and moderate Muslims hold them responsible for many attacks against religious minorities, secular intellectuals and journalists. Violence in general has become widespread and much of it appears to be religiously and politically motivated. The Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD), a prominent Bangladeshi NGO, claimed: "The intimidation of the minorities which had begun before the election, became worse afterwards." Amnesty International reported in December 2001 that Hindus — who now make up less than 10 per cent of Bangladesh’s population of 130 million — in particular have come under attack. Hindu places of worship have been ransacked, villages destroyed and scores of Hindu women are reported to have been raped.

Some of the major bomb blasts which Islamist groups are suspected to have carried out during year 2002-2003 include:

On May 10-11, 2002, representatives of nine Islamist fundamentalist groups, including the HuJI, reportedly met at a camp near Ukhia town and formed the Bangladesh Islamic Manch (Platform) (BIM).

• A transnational organization, BIM includes a group representing the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority in Myanmar, and the Muslim Liberation Tigers of Assam, a small group operating in India’s northeast.
• By June 2002, Bangladeshi veterans of the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s were reportedly training members of the new alliance in at least two camps in southern Bangladesh.

Another significant extremist organisation is the Islami Solidarity Bangladesh (ISB), an umbrella organization of various terrorist groups, which believes that no Islamist movement would be successful without an armed struggle. It came into the limelight on September 5, 2002, when it asked five Hindu professors of the Chittagong University to leave the country, threatening them with death, at any time and at any place, if they failed to comply immediately.

Many NGOs have played a significant role in the rise of fundamentalist Islam in Bangladesh.

• Osama bin Laden funded Islamist groups in Bangladesh through an organisation called the ‘Servants of Suffering Humanity International’, Dhaka.
• Extremist organizations also receive support from various other Muslim non-Government organizations. HuJI-BD reportedly receives financial assistance from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan through NGOs in Bangladesh, including the Adarsa Kutir, Al Faruk Islamic Foundation and Hataddin.
• Seven Arab nationals were arrested on September 23 from the Saudi-based Al Harmann Islamic Institute in Dhaka following intelligence reports that the NGO was allegedly providing arms training to students in the name of Islamic education.

Serious tension developed in Indo-Bangladesh relations in January 2003 over attempts by India's Border Security Force (BSF) to deport a number of Bangladeshis who had been staying illegally in India. The Bangladesh Government maintained that the alleged illegal migrants were Indian citizens, and vehemently denied the presence of any illegal Bangladeshis in India. Dhaka claims that India is attempting to evict Bengali-speaking Muslims from their country by branding them as Bangladeshi migrants. The Indian Government, on the other hand, has rejected as 'baseless and absurd' the allegation that India was trying to push in Bengali-speaking Indian Muslims into Bangladesh. There are fundamental differences between the two countries over critical issues such as illegal migration and the use of Bangladeshi territory for terrorist and subversive activities directed against India.

In the recent past, there has been a growing realization within the Indian establishment that the threat posed by illegal migration and terrorist and extremist Islamist groups operating from or within Bangladesh had serious security implications for India.

• At the end of the two-day meeting of the India-Bangladesh Joint Working Group in Dhaka on January 23, 2003, India had conveyed its concerns over the presence in Bangladesh of training camps of terrorist groups operating in India's Northeast (and had earlier identified 99 such camps and their location).
• On January 29, 2003, during the Indo-Bangladesh joint working group (JWG) at Dhaka, India asked Bangladesh to hand over 88 Indian terrorists living in that country. The list prominently included Sanjiv Debbarma of the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF), as well as Anup Chetia and Paresh Barua of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).
• Earlier on January 7, 2003, India's Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, during a conference of Chief Secretaries and Directors General of Police at Delhi, observed that there were approximately 15 million Bangladeshis staying illegally in India, and that they posed a serious threat to the country's internal security.
• However, two days later, the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh, Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, refuted India’s claim on illegal immigrants. Since then, the situation on Indo-Bangladesh border has remained tense due to conflicting positions taken by both the sides.

Bangladesh continues to remain a haven for various terrorist groups operating in India’s northeast region.

• It has also been reported on several occasions that a link exists between northeast terrorist groups and Bangladeshi Islamist outfits.
• It is also suspected that the ULFA has relocated some of their camps from Bhutan to Bangladesh.

The Indian Government has, on a number of occasions, stated that the ISI makes direct use of Bangladeshi territory to infiltrate its agents and saboteurs across the border into India, and that it is assisted in this task by the DGFI and other state agencies of Bangladesh. Speaking in the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament), on November 27, 2002, India's External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, explicitly stated that the Pakistani High Commission in Dhaka had become the "nerve center" of ISI activities in promoting terrorism and insurgency in India. He also asserted that "Some Al Qaeda elements have taken shelter in Bangladesh… the foreign media has… reported several such instances, our own sources have also confirmed many of these reports."

The current BNP Government, led by Begum Khaleda Zia has been insisting that her Government would not allow anti-India activities from its soil. However, the internal political situation in the country provides a favourable context for Islamist groups to operate. Since the installation of the BNP coalition regime, backed by the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), Islamist extremist mobilisation has risen dramatically. The militant and pro-Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami has 17 elected members in the Bangladesh Parliament and two Ministers in the present Government. The JeI also receives support from the ISI, which includes funding arms flows, and technical and training support. The current regime in Bangladesh, moreover, is regarded as being much 'closer' to Pakistan than its predecessor, and the linkages between the Bangladesh Army and intelligence apparatus, on the one hand, and their Pakistani counterparts, on the other, are known to be strong, and growing stronger.

Bangladesh continued to be a transit route for arms and narcotics trafficking and the country’s Home Minister, Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, validated this while he was speaking at a national workshop on drug control in Mirpur in February 2002. Chittagong district, especially its port area, remained a major route for arms smuggling. Rohingya refugees also supplied arms to extremist groups and criminals in Bangladesh, including those in Dhaka.

Resentment against the Chittagong Hill Tracts Treaty grew further during year 2002 due to a lack of initiative in solving the outstanding problems of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).

• The CHT Regional Council Chairman Shantu Larma accused the Government of failing to make the Council effective, to start the functioning of Land Commission, to withdraw Army camps, to assign the three hill district councils due responsibilities, and to rehabilitate the repatriated as well as internally displaced Jumma (hill people) refugees.
• Internecine clashes continued between the pro-Accord Parbatya Chattagram Jano Sanghati Samity (PCJSS) and its opponent United People's Democratic Front (UPDF).
• As the frustration of Chakma tribals with the Bangladesh Government continued to grow, the leader of PCJSS Shantu Larma during its seventh conference in November gave a call to Chakmas to continue with the struggle for upholding their separate Jumma identity. He also said that the signing of the accord was a ‘mistake’ and alleged that the Government was attempting to 'Islamise' Chittagong Hill Tracts.

• The grievance of Chakmas became further apparent on the fifth anniversary of the Accord in the first week of December when all the major parties of the region vowed to push ahead with their conflicting programmes. This development could revive insurgency in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

• Replying to a question in the Parliament on September 14, 2003, M K Anwar, Minister-in-Charge of the CHT affairs, stated that the Government was reviewing the CHT Peace Treaty of 1997 to determine if its clauses were in conformity with the Constitution. He asserted that the Government would amend any Article, which would be contrary to the features of the Constitution.

• Tribal leaders have alleged that the lawmakers of the ruling party are instigating violence against the indigenous people. One such incident erupted on August 25, 2003, in Mahalchhari in which two persons were killed and nearly 1500 tribesmen were rendered homeless after their houses were allegedly torched by Bengali settlers. PCJSS chief Santu Larma held the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board (CHTDB) Chairman and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) legislator Wadood Bhuiyan responsible for these incidents. He has also threatened to cancel certificates of permanent residence of the settlers in the CHT area.

During year 2002, there was a major decline in the law and order situation. To improve conditions, the coalition Government launched "Operation Clean Heart" on October 17, 2002.

• The Government issued a directive on November 5 asking all licensed arms holders to deposit their weapons by November 15.
• It banned trading in firearms of all types until further orders and furthermore, security forces began raiding ‘crime zones’ in all parts of the country, including the capital Dhaka.
• However, only a small number of the legal arms were deposited, though the deadline was once advanced by a week till November 21. The Government also declared illegal all the legal arms, which were not deposited by the deadline.
• Though Home Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury informed Parliament that the Army would be deployed on law and order duty as long as it is necessary, the Government formed a Rapid Action Team (RAT) and began training them to tackle terrorists and criminals, once the Army was withdrawn.
• The joint forces were withdrawn from ‘Operation Clean Heart’ on January 11, 2003.
• During the drive, 24,023 Army personnel, 339 Naval troops, and a large number of the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) and police personnel participated. Security forces arrested 11,280 people, including 2,482 listed criminals/terrorists, and seized 2,028 weapons and 29,754 rounds of ammunition.

"Operation Clean Heart" did not produce desired results because it lost direction after some time and became an exercise in political vendetta. Most of the action was directed against the opposition leaders, progressive intellectuals, moderate Rohingyas and the youth activists of the opposition Awami League party. Although the Operation was initially welcomed by the people at large, as also by the business community, the common people became sceptical as more and more reports of custodial deaths of innocent civilians, particularly Awami League leaders and activists, stated pouring in. Moreover, the Government introduced the Joint Forces Indemnity Act 2003, in the Jatiya Sangsad (National Parliament) on February 2, 2003, which sought to indemnify all actions, including deaths and torture, during the Army-led anti-crime drive across the country. Despite the strong resistance of the opposition this Bill was passed.

The Bangladesh Government launched another operation codenamed ‘Spider Web’ on July 19, 2003, to check the decline in law and order in the southwestern districts of Bangladesh after all regular defensive measures and combing operations by police had failed. The area of operation was limited to the southwestern region covering Jhenidah, Kushtia, Chuadanga, Meherpur, Jessore, Khulna, Satkhira, Bagerhat and adjacent districts. This Operation primarily targeted the outlawed left-wing extremist parties’ active in the region. During the drive, 14,000 personnel from the police, paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles, the Ansar militia auxiliary force and the coast guard participated. However, media reports from Bangladesh have indicated that the operation failed to produce the intended results due to a faulty strategy, lack of intelligence and alleged police tip-off to criminals. Police had also made a grave mistake by publicizing the drive prior to its launching and this acted as a forewarning for the top leaders and prompted them to go into hiding. Police failed to catch any of the major ringleaders or to recover any significant amount of arms and ammunition.

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