More than three million Muslim devotees from 52 countries gathered along the bank of the Turag river, 30kilometres north of Dhaka, at Tongi, Gazipur, for the three-day annual Biswa Ijtema (WorldCongregation) between December 14 and 16, 2002.
The significance of the event was underlined by the profile of political leaders who attended: present atthe concluding prayers were Bangladesh President, Prof Iajuddin Ahmed; the Prime Minister, Begum Khaleda Zia;Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Sheikh Hasina and other political, civil and military leaders. TheIjtema is organised annually by the Tablighi Jamaat.
The Biswa Ijtema, the second largest congregation of Muslims in the world after the Hajj, endedpeacefully despite rumours that some international terrorist groups may have planned to disrupt the event.But, the fact that millions of Muslim devotees from across the world gathered in Bangladesh emphasises therole the country has come to play in the context of international Islamic brotherhood.
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Although the government in Dhaka has reacted fiercely to any suggestion that the country is becoming ahaven for Islamic extremists, reports from Asian and Western intelligence services suggest otherwise.
Shortly after the fall of Kandahar in late 2001, several hundred Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters escaped by shipfrom Karachi to Chittagong. They were then trucked down to hidden camps in the Ukhia area, south of Cox'sBazaar. Local people report seeing heavily armed men, with a few Bangladeshis among them, in those camps. Theywere told that they would be killed if anyone told 'outsiders' about this regrouping of ex-Afghanistanfighters in this remote corner of southeastern Bangladesh.
According to other reports from Asian security services, militants from the Jemaah Islamiah - which isconnected to the Al Qaeda and wants 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 1990sto train rebels from the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar's Rakhine State. In more recent years, thesecamps are in effect, run by Bangladesh's most extreme Islamic outfit, the Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami (HuJI),which was set up in 1992, reportedly with financial support from Osama bin Laden.
The Jemaah Islamiah is suspected of being behind a number of planned - but foiled - attacks against Westerntargets in Singapore, as well as the devastating bomb blast on the Indonesian island of Bali on October 12,2002, in which nearly 200 people were killed, most of them Western tourists.
The Jemaah Islamiah militants in hiding in southeastern Bangladesh are believed to be mostly Malaysian andSingaporean citizens. It is, however, uncertain to what extent the Bangladeshi security services have beeninvolved in their relocation. But, well-placed local sources say that it would have been impossible without atleast some tacit agreement with the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), Bangladesh's chiefintelligence agency, which is closely connected with Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Security concerns heightened over the holding of the Biswa Ijtema in Tongi only a week after at least18 persons were killed and 300 injured in bomb blasts in four cinema halls in the central Bangladeshi town ofMymensingh on December 7. Without being specific, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia described these as a"planned terrorist attack", while Opposition leader Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League, claimed thatan "identified fanatic terrorist group within [the ruling] alliance is behind these heinous bombblasts." The international news agency, Reuters first reported that Home Minister Altaf HossainChowdhury had said that bin Laden's Al Qaeda network was behind the blast, but later had to retract the reportafter denials from the Minister.
Subsequently, the police raided the local office of Reuters in Dhaka. Dozens of opposition activistswere also arrested, but no link to them could be established. The raid on Reuters and the arrest ofopposition politicians came only days after a British TV team and their local helpers had been arrested fortrying to document the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh and its possible consequences on thecountry's non-Muslim minorities.
Many foreign observers may contend that the Bangladeshi authorities are simply overreacting to internationalpress coverage, but it could also be that the DGFI has too much to hide, and therefore wants to silence anyreports suggesting that their country has become a hot-bed of Islamic fundamentalism.
The four-party alliance that won the Bangladeshi elections in October 2001 includes the fundamentalistJamaat-e-Islami, which has two Ministers in the present government. Its youth organisation, the Islami ChhatraShibir (ICS), was behind Bangladesh's most devastating bomb blast before the cinemas in Mymensingh were hit -an explosion on June 15, 2001, at the Awami League office in Narayanganj, in which 21 persons were killed andover a 100 others injured. The same government-connected outfit is also suspected of being behind severalother bomb blasts as well as attacks on secular Bangladeshi politicians, journalists and writers.
The ICS is closely connected with the most militant of the Rohingya organisations along the Myanmar-Bangladeshborder, the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), which also has links to the Al Qaeda. Video footagereleased by the American cable television network CNN in August this year and obtained from Al Qaeda, showsRohingyas as well as Bangladeshis training in camps near the country's southeastern border, but well insideBangladesh.
Al Qaeda's involvement in Bangladesh was confirmed in September this year, when the police in Dhaka arrestedseven 'aid workers' working for the Saudi-based Al Haramain Islamic Institute. The men, who came from Libya,Algeria, Sudan and Yemen belonged to an organisation that had first come to Bangladesh to help Rohingyarefugees, but later became involved in running Islamic centres all over the country. The so-called Institutehas been named by several sources as a front for the Al Qaeda. Perhaps not surprisingly, nothing came out ofthe arrests and the whole affair was quickly hushed up by the Bangladeshi authorities, suggesting that the'arrests' were a mistake by some local police officer.
The United States has so far accepted the Bangladeshi government's assurances that the country is not playinghost to international terrorist movements, and that it is a reliable partner in the global war on terror. Butthis ostrich-like mentality may change as more evidence to the contrary comes to light.
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The arrests of foreign journalists and the raid on Reuters in Dhaka are worrying signs of increasingintolerance in Bangladesh. And the hosting of the Biswa Ijtema is bound to attract the attention of'friendly' Islamic organisations, which see the country as a perfect place to hide out when internationalattention is focused on events in more high-profile countries such as Pakistan and Indonesia.
(The author is Senior Writer, Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), courtesy: South AsiaIntelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal)
