The Pakistan Model?

On March 2, 2006, the 50 year old ‘supreme commander’ of the Jama’atulMujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Abdur Rahman, surrendered after a 34-hour siege onhis East Shaplabagh hideout in Sylhet City, 200 kilometres northeast of capitalDhaka. Arrested along with Rahman were his wife, sons, daughters, grandson,domestic helps and some associates.

Four days later, on March 6, the JMB number two and ‘commander’ of theJagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai,hiding in a tin-shed in the remote Rampur Village under the MuktagachhaSub-district of Mymensingh, 120 kilometres north of Dhaka, was wounded andcaptured, after skirmishes with the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).

"Bangladesh is a terrorism-free nation", declared an ecstatic PrimeMinister, Khaleda Zia, in a televised address to the nation, after the March 2arrest of the JMB chief. Speaking again on March 7, after Bangla Bhai’sarrest, she added, albeit with greater moderation, that the government would‘succeed in destroying the terrorist networks and arresting the remainingterrorists’.

There are obvious reasons to celebrate the ‘capture’ of the twomost-wanted militants, silencing the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP), andBegum Zia’s personal, bete noire, the Sheikh Hasina Wajed-led AwamiLeague, which will, for the time being, sound much less convincing in its claimsof governmental collusion with the Islamist terrorists. The arrests would also,at least temporarily, discomfit the many critics of the BNP-Islamist coalitionin India, who have long attacked Begum Zia’s government on the same grounds.

The test of good faith would, however, come in the follow up to the arrests,and the willingness of the government to act on the information recovered fromthe arrested militants. That would not only mean, as indicated by Prime MinisterKhaleda Zia, targeting the international networks of the militancy, but alsotracking and breaking such ties, wherever they exist, domestically. 

Going by the established linkages of the JMB and the JMJB with entities likethe Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), BNP’s coalition partner, the Islami Chattra Shibir(ICS) JeI’s student wing, and some of the ministers within the BNP, as well aspolice officials and bureaucrats, effective anti-terrorist action wouldessentially demand steps against the government’s own men, partners andloyalists. 

In the past, and despite hard evidences, the government has demonstratedlittle will for such initiatives, and there is persisting skepticism thatanti-militancy operations would stop short of the necessary measures this timeas well. Indeed, the arrests of the two top JMB-JMJB leaders have confirmedtheir linkages with the JeI. Two of the four bank cheque books found in AbdurRahman’s Sylhet hideout belonged to the former JeI ameer (chief) of theHabiganj district, Saidur Rahman. Saidur’s son Shamim, a former ICS activist,has already been arrested for his involvement in the August 17, 2005,explosions. It remains to be seen, moreover, where these arrests lead evenagainst Siddiqul Islam and Abdur Rahman. 

In Pakistan, several prominent terrorist leaders – their organizationsostensibly ‘banned’ by the government – have been arrested in the past,only to be hosted in some comfort for a few months, before they are once againreleased. The ‘Pakistan model’ is one that Bangladesh has been assiduouslyemulating over the past years, and only harsh action against the arrestedmilitants is going to convince the government’s critics that it actually meansbusiness. 

It is significant that the District Courts in Barisal and Sylhet have alreadypronounced sentences of death and forty years of imprisonment against bothRahman and Siddiqul Islam; visible, determined and rapid movement towardsexecution of these sentences would certainly have evidentiary value within thiscontext.

Nevertheless, the capture of the country’s two top terrorists constitutes adefinite setback for the twin outfits, the JMB and the JMJB, which haveengineered several terrorist strikes over the past years, including thecountry-wide blasts on August 17, 2005. These arrests, however, do notnecessarily auger the immediate collapse and death of these groups, althoughfive of the seven members of the Majlis-e-Shura (the highestdecision-making body) of the JMB are now behind bars. These include Ataur RahmanSunny (arrested on December 14, 2005), Abdul Awal (arrested on November 18,2005) and Rakib Hasan Russel alias Hafez Mohammad (arrested on February 28,2006). The remaining members of the Shura, Salahuddin alias Salehin(‘commander’ of the Sylhet-Mymensingh region) and Faruq Hossain alias KhaledSaifullah (‘commander’ of the Rangpur-Dinajpur region), remain at large.Salahuddin, considered to be an expert in bomb-making, masterminded theNetrokona suicide attack on December 8, 2005, with the help of his associateMujahiddul Islam Sumon, who was later arrested in Mymansingh. Faruq Hossaincoordinated the suicide attacks targeting judges in Chandpur, Laxmipur andChittagong.

Also elusive is Nabil Bin Rahman, the 16 year old son of the arrested JMBchief. Nabil is considered to be a specialist in assembling explosives and isalso, according to Abdur Rahman’s admissions in possession of a large cache ofexplosives. Police are also reportedly looking for about 40 bomb-making expertsof the terrorist combine, who played a crucial part in the August 17 bombblasts. In addition, there are an unspecified number of suicide bombers, about10,000 ‘full time workers’ and 100,000 ‘part time workers’ of the outfitin various districts of the country, with Jamalpur, Bogra and Natore itsstrongholds. 

In areas such as the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region, Cox’s Bazaar,Gazipur, Jhalakathi, Barisal, Patuakhali and Chandpur, the JMB-JMJB has awell-established network. The group also has a strong presence among theRohingya dominated southern parts of the country. In addition, there arenumerous faceless foreign collaborators and sponsors, whose generouscontributions have made the group what it is today. In fact, Shura member AbdulAwal had confessed in February 2006 that a Muslim militant leader in the UnitedKingdom, had given them £10,000 to carry out the bomb attacks. For a governmentthat is known for its more-than-wavering approach towards the growth of radicalIslamism in the country, bringing Islamist militancy and its elaborate networkto account, would be an enormous task.

An indication of this magnitude is visible in the ‘progress’ claimed bythe government in bringing the militants responsible for the 459 explosions ofAugust 17, 2005, to justice. Till date, just 225 cases have been filed invarious Districts of the country and 122 charge sheets have been produced beforethe Courts; 93 cases are under investigation and the trial of some 61 cases hasbegun. In most of the charge-sheeted cases, the terrorists, including their topleaders, have been booked under the Explosive Substances Act.

Evidence of foot-dragging is also visible in tracking the financial trail ofthe JMB-JMJB. Police have identified suspect accounts of the JMB in three bankbranches in Sylhet, Brahmanbaria and Pallabi in Dhaka, but have only led to therecovery of a few thousand taka in deposits, with total transactions amountingto just Taka 1,100,000 lakh (US $16,138) – a pittance in view of the fact thatthe outfit is known to have been spending up to Taka 700,000 (US $10,269) permonth on its activities. 

Targeting the financial network of the terrorists is further handicapped bythe fact that the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2001, is still being amended withassistance from the United States, and does not currently support anyinter-agency collaboration. Speaking on March 8, 2006, Bangladesh Bank Governor,Salehuddin Ahmed, stated that the "mere detection and seizure of accounts ofalleged terrorists would not be enough to stop the terrorist financing andactivities". His confessed helplessness in the matter, stating, further,"Some of the banks do not tell us about the suspicious transactions despiterepeated requests."

There has been a continuous and great reluctance in Bangladesh to fightIslamist terrorism, and it was official patronage that encouraged and sustainedthe growth of extremist groups, allowing a lowly Bengali teacher like SiddiqulIslam to acquire near-heroic proportions as ‘Bangla Bhai’, and the formerICS activist Abdur Rahman to float and nourish the JMB. It remains to be seenwhether Dhaka has the will and the capacity to cut the umbilical cord that haslinked elements within the ruling coalition to the terrorists, even at the riskof placing the survival of the government, and the possibilities of re-election,in jeopardy.

Bangladesh, moreover, cannot become a "terrorism-free nation" as long asit continues to host and support virtually every active Northeast Indianterrorist group on its soil, and as long as it continues to export Islamistterrorists into India – with the latter trend increasingly in evidence overthe past months.

Bibhu Prasad Routray is Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management.Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia TerrorismPortal.