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Bangladesh

Militant leader wanted to fight poverty with jihad

2015-06-26

[Dhaka Tribune] The chief of recently emerged Bangladesh Jihadi Group had launched the krazed killer platform as a means of changing his financial condition by sending members to Syria and Iraq to fight for the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , detectives say. Md Asaduzzaman alias Milon alias Milu alias Abdullah alias Anik, the suspected commander of the group jugged Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! on Wednesday, was unable to bear the family needs with Tk100 that he used to get by assisting a lawyer. At the court, Asad had met with the brother of Harkat-ul Jihad Al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B Founded in 1984 by Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Qari Saifullah Aktar. The Bangla branch was established in 1992 with assistance from Osama bin Laden. Recruits come mostly from Deobandi madrassahs. HuJI and Fazlur Rehman Khalil are signators of bin Laden's declaration of war on the west. ) chief Maulana Abdur Rouf and soon became close to work together. The group also planned robbing banks to raise funds. But most of its members including the second-in-command, Maulana Nurullah Kashemi, were arrested before committing the robbery at a private bank in Saidpur. Both Asad and Kashemi met with Rouf at the jail before launching the platform in October last year, officials at the Detective Branch of police say. Asad completed his LLB from Darul Ihsan University, but did not get a job anywhere. He then started working as an assistant of a lawyer at the Dhaka Judge's Court. But since the pay was tiny, he had to lend money from his relatives and other lawyers. "He was feeling helpless, and at some point decided to change the society and the people through jihad," DB Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam told news hounds yesterday. Brother of the HuJIB chief often went to the court to deal with Rouf's cases and came in contact with Asad. Kashemi had served as resident preacher at a mosque while staying in Kuwait. Returning home recently, he opened a branch of Al-Azhar University of Egypt. But failing to make profit from the business, he shut it down. He later started writing Islamic books and giving sermons at different religious functions. During his bad times, Kashemi contacted a number of people to do something significant for Islam, but none supported him. Then he met Asad, who took him to Rouf. The group was recruiting students from madrasas and private universities with radical views as members, and working to send them to the Middle East as IS fighters after training in Shariatpur and some bordering areas in the northern part of the country. "Asad was planning to go abroad to collect funds," Monirul said. The platform had invited the members of all banned and little-known krazed killer organizations to work together to establish a Shariah state by undermining the democratic process, castigating the rulers and terrorising the secular forces and the law enforcers. A team of counter-terrorism and transnational crime unit of the DB police arrested Asad and Firoz Md Tomal, the key financier of Bangladesh Jihadi Group, during a drive in the capital's Mohammadpur area. Detectives also recovered three foreign pistols, 16 rounds of bullet, 1kg explosives and two laptops from their possessions, Monirul said. A case was filed against the arrestees with Mohammadpur police under the Anti-Terrorism Act. They were placed on a five-day remand yesterday by a Dhaka court. The duo were arrested on information given by the nine members of the group including Kashemi held on June 7. Their explosives suppliers, a lab assistant of Dhaka University and three others, were arrested on June 16. Ex-defence, police trained recruits As part of their plan to provide extensive training to the new recruits, the Jihadi Group leaders were trying to convince terminated and retired officials of different forces to work as trainers, Monirul said adding that some of them had already agreed to assist the group. Once the training was completed, their target was to send the members to Syria to work for IS. On return, they were supposed to work to establish Shariah rule in Bangladesh. Tomal financed Hailing from a rich family, Tomal had completed graduation on electrical engineering at Independent University of Bangladesh. His father, an assistant commissioner of customs, has at least 17 houses and flats in the capital. Tomal used to collect the rents, Monirul said. "Tomal used to finance the outfit through Asad. But as it was difficult to run the outfit only by one financier, they were planning to conduct bank robbery." Both the arrestees admitted that Tomal owned the recovered pistols. Sanowar Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of DB police, told the Dhaka Tribune that they had got identities of 25-30 members of the group and hoped that the others would be arrested

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Bangladesh

Bangla Islamists on 10-year mission to prepare ground for revolution

2005-10-23

Any of you policy-making types lurking here, please read this article in full and carefully ponder the points being presented. The country’s Islamist militant outfits have been looking to implement, in stages, a decade-long strategy to prepare an atmosphere compatible with an Islamic revolution in Bangladesh, said intelligence officials. The officials, who are working to apprehend the leaders of the outfits, said the strategy was adopted in 1998 together with other Islamist groups and parties which believe in jihad and want to establish Islamic rule. 1998. Where have we heard that date before? Oh yeah. Binny issued his fatwa on 23 February 1998. Sorta coincidental that that is the year the Bangla islamists began the operations phase of their jihad, dontcha think? ‘The 10-year-long mission was undertaken only after establishing a strong foundation by recruiting thousands of workers and agents since the early 1990s,’ said an intelligence official. ‘They have been smoothly marching toward their destination with their task already half done,’ said the official, who has obtained some crucial information about the mission. That's spookspeak for "I read Rantburg." His investigation reveals the frequent bombings are meant to make the countrymen used to such incidents so that they accept it as a part of life and not react on a mass scale. ‘The militants will continue bombing, assuming it will inure the people and help them to launch jihad.’ Intelligence officials said Islamist outfits that are operating have separate identities to give the impression that the bombings are isolated incidents, but in reality they are now working in unison to achieve their goal of establishing a fundamentalist, theocratic state. A fundamentalist, theocratic state that only by purest accident looks a lot like the Land of the Two Holy Mosques. Apart from recruiting dedicated leaders and workers they have been able to plant their people in most institutions of the society, including government departments and agencies. Among them there are influential ministers, lawmakers, politicians, law enforcers, government officials, businessmen, Noam Chomsky, Sean Penn, French foreign policy, and journalists, but they are all working behind the scenes. Investigation reveals that the militants have resumed trying to implement the strategy by carrying out secret killings, fighting law enforcers and looting firearms and other weapons to become stronger than the government forces. ‘They have earned sufficient strength and put their people in powerful quarters and key places, and they began operating in the northern part of Bangladesh in April last year, unveiling their faces for the first time,’ said an official. They unveiled their faces by wrapping their heads in kefiyyehs and rolling their eyes as they planted their bombs. Militants under the banner of Jagrata Muslim Janata, led by Al-Qaeda Bangla regional manager Bangla Bhai, created a reign of terror in the region through torturing, killing and maiming hundreds of people. ‘It was a big test which came out quite successfully, facing virtually no resistance or retaliatory action by the authorities,’ said the official. ‘The decision of certain sections in the government to release arrested militants, instead of pressing charges, and disobeying the prime ministerial order to arrest Bangla Bhai proves that they have successfully crossed the first obstacle,’ he added. He said the frequent bombings were the deadliest part of the 10-year plan. ‘The bombings were meant to prove the expertise and the strength of the militants, and to inspire their followers and sympathisers,’ said the official, who is trying to find out the next step that will follow the bombings. Whoever this official is, I hope he has someone start his car for him in the morning. He's making far too much sense. Investigators said that Harkat-ul Jihad Al-Islam, which began operating secretly in 1992, is the mother organisation of the militant Islamist outfits now active in the country. Nearly 3,000 Bangladeshi youths fought in the Afghanistan war, of whom 24 were killed and 10 were wounded. They got training in the use of firearms and explosives, and were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of jihad. After returning home they were fed a steady diet of jihadi snuff films, conspiracy theories, and Jolt cola started dreaming of Islamic rule in Bangladesh and began working towards that end, said intelligence officials. Founded by Afghan war veterans in 1992, Harkat came to limelight through a press conference in the city in 1996, and soon other like-minded people and groups joined it to further the cause of jihad. To achieve their goal the Islamist outfits also made a deal with Rohingya militants and trained their youths at the hide-outs in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. According to the pact, thousands of Rohingya militants will join hands with the outfits when they launch jihad after implementing the decade-long mission. In return, the Rohingyas will be helped by these outfits in their own struggle to create a separate Arakan state. Twenty-five Rahingyas nabbed in Chittagong admitted their link with Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, which is reportedly carried out the bomb attacks. Hundreds of field-level militants were arrested after the August 17 and October 3 bombings, but it has failed to have any impact on the vast organisational structure of the outfits, believe intelligence officials. They said that unless the big fish like Abdur Rahman and his brother Ataur Rahman Sunny, Bangla Bangla and their patrons in the powerful quarters are apprehended, nothing effective can be done and their operations will continue according to their plan. The bombing in three districts on October 3 proved how dedicated the militants are, and unless the government puts itself on a war footing and is relentless in rooting them out, their operations will continue till they achieve their goal. ‘The Islamist outfits thought the government would come down heavily on them after the series of bombing incidents, but they gained more confidence and became more determined as almost nothing was done, said an intelligence official. There's a Powerpoint slide presentation in here somewhere, folks. What has been identified in this report for Bangladesh is Al-Qaeda's global strategy in microcosm.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Hunt on for Afghan war veterans

2005-10-04

The law enforcers are on the hunt for the associates of arrested Islamist extremist Mufti Abdul Hannan, who took part in the war in Afghanistan against Soviet invaders, and planned massive attacks to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh. Sources in the intelligence agencies said that the arrested Mufti Abdul Hannan, leader of banned Islamist outfit Harkat-ul Jihad Al-Islam who is now on a 10-day police remand, was maintaining good contact with his comrades after they returned to the country. Hannan reportedly instigated them to wage a war against the ‘enemies of Islam’ and fight to make Bangladesh a completely Islamic state, said sources. Hannan is being interrogated by the Rapid Action Battalion at its headquarters. "Aaaaiiiieeee!" "Shuddup. Just answer the questions!" During interrogation, Hannan reportedly reiterated that he was not involved in the August 17 countrywide blasts that killed three people and injured over 150. "No, no! Certainly not!" "Hit him again, Mahmoud!" He reportedly disclosed the names of some militants, most of them from Gopalganj, who are active in the country, said battalion sources. As per his statements, the plainclothes teams of RAB and intelligence agencies have beefed up their drives to nab bombers, said the sources. That's a comfort. To me, anyway.

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