'We All Will Become Taliban ...'

The Reuters news agency reported that a series of near-simultaneous bomb blasts at four Bangladeshi cinemahalls packed with families celebrating the end of the Ramadan Muslim fasting month killed 15 people onDecember 7, 2002, and wounded nearly 300. The targeted cinema halls are located in and around the normallyquiet tourist town of Mymenshingh, about 120 kms to the  north of  Dhaka. Other reports put thenumber of dead at 20, with  50 of the wounded  in a critical condition.

The explosions  seem to have all the hallmarks of acts of terrorism, but no organisation has claimedresponsibility till the time of recording of this article (10 PM on December 8, 2002).  However, theBangladesh Home Minister, Mr. Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, was quoted by Reuters as saying that  the attackscould have been  the work of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network or some other terrorist group.  (Hehas since denied saying this)

At the same time, he would not rule out the possibility of  even the political opponents of thepresent Government organising the explosions in order to discredit Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.He has ordered anational security alert.  A local police officer has been quoted as saying : "We are not surewhether the bombs were planted earlier or exploded by suicide bombers."  He added that no foreignerswere among the dead.  Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and her Ministers have started a campaign blaming thosetrying to malign Bangladesh from abroad for the explosions and four persons connected with the oppositionparties have been rounded up.

In September, 2002, bombs wounded 30 people at a circus show and in a cinema hall  in southwesternSatkhira.  At least 22 people were killed and more than 100 injured in an explosion  at a localoffice of the then ruling Awami League in June 2001.  At least nine people were killed and 50 injured ina bomb blast during an open-air concert in 2000.  None of  the  major acts of suspectedterrorism since 2000 was directed at US or other Western targets and do not appear to have been part of theseries of terrorist incidents directed against Western and  Israeli targets by bin Laden's InternationalIslamic Front (IIF) since its formation in February,1998.

Three of the incidents since 2000 were directed at places providing entertainment to the people, therebygiving rise to the suspicion that the explosions might have been the handiwork of theHarkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) of Pakistan, which is a member of the IIF and  has a strong presence inBangladesh.  Like its Pakistani parent organisation, the HUJI of Bangladesh, which the US StateDepartment in its annual reports titled "Patterns of Global Terrorism" identifies as HUJI-B, has astrong Wahabi and Taliban influence and has been carrying on a campaign against music, dancing, films, TV etcas anti-Islam and against the Indian cultural influence in Bangladesh, which it projects as the Hindu culturalinfluence. 

Its slogan is :"Amra Sobai Hobo Taliban. Bangla Hobe Afghanistan' (We all will become Taliban andBangla will become Afghanistan).  Its involvement, along with that of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), a memberof the ruling coalition in Dhaka, was strongly suspected in a series of violent incidents directed at theHindu minorities after the present Government came to power in October, 2001.

The latest report of the US State Department for 2001, which was released in May 2002, describes the HUJI(B) as follows:

"The mission of HUJI-B, led by Shauqat Osman, is to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh. HUJI-B hasconnections to the Pakistani militant groups HUJI and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), who advocate similarobjectives in Pakistan and Kashmir. 

HUJI-B was accused of stabbing a senior Bangladeshi journalist in November 2000 for making a documentary onthe plight of Hindus in Bangladesh.  HUJI-B was suspected in the July 2000 assassination attempt ofBangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. 

HUJI-B has an estimated cadre strength of over several thousand members.  Operates and trains members inBangladesh, where it maintains at least six camps.  Funding of the HUJI-B comes primarily from madrasasin Bangladesh.  The group has also ties to militants in Pakistan that may provide another fundingsource."

Before 1998, the HUM and the HUJI of Pakistan constituted a single organisation called the Harkat-ul-Ansar(HUA), which was active in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) in India.  It also provided training and armsassistance to the Rohingya Muslims of Arakan in Myanmar, the Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines and theChechens.  In the 1990s, the HUA had set up training camps in Bangladesh for training local recruits aswell as recruits from India, Arakan, and southern Philippines.

After the involvement of the HUA in the kidnapping of some American and other Western tourists in J&Kunder the name Al Faran in 1995, the US State Department designated it as a Foreign Terrorist Organisationunder a 1996 law in October,1997.  Thereafter, the HUA dissolved itself  and started operating inPakistan again as two organisations with their original names of HUM and HUJI. The HUA in Bangladesh did notdissolve itself.  Instead, it simply changed its name as HUJI and started functioning as the branch ofthe HUJI of Pakistan.

Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the present head of the HUJI of Pakistan, was involved in the 1995 attempt by agroup of Pakistani Army officers led by Maj. Gen. Zaheer-ul-Islam Abbasi, who was the head of the ISI stationin the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi in the late 1980s,to stage a coup and proclaim Islamic rule inPakistan. The plot was discovered in time by the then Benazir Bhutto Government and Abbasi and other officersinvolved were arrested, court-martialed and sentenced to imprisonment. 

Abbasi, who used to be close to Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military dictator, was released fromimprisonment last year and was active in carrying on a campaign against the USA amongst retired militaryofficers since Operation Enduring Freedom started in Afghanistasn on October 7, 2001.  It was not knownwhether he had completed his sentence or whether he was released on parole or given remission of his sentence.

Qari Saifullah,who was also detained by the Pakistani authorities during the investigation of the plot, wasreleased after some time and was not prosecuted.  No reasons were given for not prosecuting him.  Hecrossed over into Afghanistan after 1998, joined bin Laden's IIF and emerged as an important adviser of MullaOmer, the Amir of the Taliban, and bin Laden.  The HUJI was reported to have contributed the largestnumber of jihadis for the IIF's fight against the Americans in Afghanistan, followed by the HUM, theLashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM).  Many jihadis from South-East Asia fought inAfghanistan under the banner of the HUJI, which suffered the largest number of casualties in the American airstrikes.

Since the beginning of this year, the survivors of the IIF re-entered Pakistan from Afghanistan and thosewho had joined them from S. E. Asia were shifted to Bangladesh. Even though the Pakistani authoritiesinitially  blamed the JEM and subsequently a splinter group of the HUM called the HUM (Al Alami, meaningInternational) for the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, in January, 2002, and his subsequentbrutal murder, sections of the Pakistani media had been reporting that it was the HUJI, which had organisedhis kidnapping and murder.

HUJI (B) was suspected in the attack on the Indian security personnel guarding the American Centre inKolkata on January,22,2002. The News, the prestigious daily of Pakistan, had reported that during hisinterrogation, Omar Sheikh, who has since been convicted for his involvement in the kidnapping of Pearl, hadtold the Karachi Police that he had also organised the attacks on the Legislative Assembly of J&K inSrinagar on October 1, 2001, on the Indian Parliament House on December 13, 2001, and on the securitypersonnel outside the American Centre in Kolkata. This was, however, denied by the Pakistani authorities, whoforced the owner of the paper to sack the Editor, who subsequently fled to the US, where he has been livingnow.

On January 15, 2002, Musharraf, under US pressure, banned the LET and the JEM, but not the HUM and the HUJI.Officials of Pakistan's Ministry of the Interior had stated that another order banning them would follow, butthis has not happened so far.The HUJI of Pakistan too, like its Bangladeshi branch, carries on a campaignagainst music, dancing, films and TV, but has not resorted to violence to enforce its ban on them. One of thefirst acts of the Government of the religious fundamentalist parties, which has taken over power in Pakistan'sNorth-West Frontier Province (NWFP), was to ban public performance of music and dancing, but not films and TV.Not yet.

The Mymensingh explosions have come in the wake of a controversy between the Governments of India andBangladesh following a statement made by the Indian Foreign Minister, Mr. Yashwant Sinha, in reply toquestions in the Indian Parliament last month in which he expressed New Delhi's concerns over the reportedactivities of Al Qaeda from Bangladesh territory.  A report on this subject carried earlier by the Asianedition of the Time magazine of the US was strongly denied by the Bangladeshi authorities. Sections ofthe Dhaka media had then quoted the US Ambassador to Bangladesh as stating that the US was not aware of anysuch activities.

In this connection, extracts from my past articles on this subject are annexed for ready reference.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)

ANNEXURE

"After the arrest and interrogation of a South African citizen of Indian origin Ahmed Sadeq Ahmed,aPakistani citizen Mohammad Sajed and two Bangladeshis- Maulana Nazrul Islam and Sardar Bokhtiar-- in 1999, theCriminal Investigation Department (CID) of the BD Police projected them as members of bin Laden's organisationand gave the following details of the HUJI as gathered by them during the interrogation:

• Bin Laden had sanctioned taka 20 million (US $ 0.40 million) for recruiting and training cadres andorganising terrorist and subversive activities in Bangladesh.  He had handed over the money to MohammadSajed, who is the coordinator of the pro-bin Laden militants working in Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh.
  
  
• Mohammad Sajed told the investigators that he had handed over the money to Sardar Bokhtiar.
  
  
• Bokhtiar confessed to having received this amount and said that he had distributed it to 421 madrasaswhich were helping the HUJI in recruiting and training its cadres.
  
  
• Maulana Nazrul Islam, who was arrested in Sirajganj district, is said to be the Amir of the HUJI in BD.

"These claims of the CID were strongly refuted by the JEI of BD and its counterpart in South Africa. Despite this, the US Secret Service took them seriously enough to advise President Clinton to cancel a visitto a village outside Dacca during his visit to BD in March,2000.

"The BD authorities also blamed the HUJI for two alleged attempts to kill Sheikh Hasina in July 2000,when explosive devices were recovered at or near the places to be visited by her during a routine securitycheck.

"Since the beginning of this year, there has been a number of violent incidents in which theinvolvement of the Islamic extremist elements was suspected by the BD Police.  The more important ofthese incidents were:

• On January 20, 2001, six persons were killed and 50 others injured in two separate bomb blasts in Dhaka.  Home MinisterMohammad Nasism held the JEI and its affiliates responsible for the attack.  Water Resources MinisterAbdur Razzak accused Pakistan's ISI of having instigated the incidents.
  
  
• On February 6, seven persons were killed and 100 injured in a clash between Islamic fundamentalists and the security forcesat Brahanbaria, bordering the Indian State of Tripura.  These incidents were a sequel to the arrests oftwo top leaders of the IOJ for having threatened two judges who had banned the issue of fatwas by clerics andkilled a police constable.
  
  
• On April 14, a bomb exploded at an open-air concert in Dacca, killing at least nine people and wounding nearly 50. Theconcert was part of celebrations marking the Bengali new year.  Sheikh Hasina blamed the blasts on"forces who opposed Bangladesh's independence (from Pakistan) and want to destroy Bengali culture". The JEI had been campaigning against the celebration of the Bengali new year on the ground that it wasunIslamic.

"Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have also been targeted by these groups as 'un-Islamic'. The hundreds of NGOs working to raise living standards and the lot of women in one of the world's poorestnations, have been accused of destroying Islamic culture." (An article of  2001 titled "AnAbbasi lurking in BD?")

"The international community has not paid to Bangladesh the attention it deserves. The HUJI has alwayshad a strong presence in Bangladesh. Bin Laden's first fatwa against the US was signed by a jehadi leader fromBangladesh, whose identity could not be definitively established. With the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) of Bangladeshnow forming a part of the Government in Dhaka, action against the HUJI and other pro-bin Laden elements hasbeen diluted.Taking advantage of the more conducive atmosphere now prevailing in Bangladesh, many dregs of theInternational Islamic Front, particularly those originating from S.E. Asia, have moved into Bangladesh fromPakistan and set up their training and logistics infrastructure there. There have even been unconfirmedreports of the presence of Ayman-al-Zawahiri, the No.2 to bin Laden, in Bangladesh." (Article titled"TheGround Signals")

"Since July last , unconfirmed rumours have been circulating in Karachi and elsewhere about a largenumber of members of the Al Qaeda, including some leaders such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama's No.2, havingescaped to Bangladesh, with the help of the HUJI, which has an active branch in Bangladesh assisted by theBangladeshi military-intelligence establishment.

What seems to have happened and is still happening is that many Bangladeshis, Arakanese, Malays fromSingapore and Malaysia, Indonesians and Filipinos, who had fought as members of the HUM, the HUJI and the LETagainst the Northern Alliance and subsequently against the US in Afghanistan, have been finding their way,with the help of the HUJI and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) of Bangladesh, which is a member of the rulingcoalition in Dhaka, into Bangladesh. 

Unconfirmed reports also mentioned the presence in Bangladesh  of  Riduan Isamuddin of Indonesia,better known as Hambali, the 36-year-old cleric  wanted by the U.S. and four South-East Asian countriesas the terrorist mastermind of the Asian operations of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and the guidingforce  of S.E.Asian terrorism.  It is likely that some of these terrorist dregs have since sneakedback to their countries of origin.

 The Bali explosions probably mark the return to Indonesia of the some of the dregs from Afghanistanand Pakistan.  The talk in the Pakistani madrasas has been that from now onwards the members of theInternational Islamic Front would be carrying out a well-orchestrated series of terrorist attacks againstWestern nationals and interests in different parts of the world as warning signals to pre-empt US-UK militarystrikes against Iraq.  The attacks on the French tanker off Yemen and in Bali were apparently part ofthis planned series and more are likely as the US and the UK go ahead with their preparations for an attack onIraq for the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein." (Article titled "IraqConnection?")