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Bangladesh

Police on trail of an Afghan war veteran

2009-07-26

[Bangla Daily Star] The Detective Branch of police has launched a nationwide hunt for Afghan war veteran Moulana Bakhtiar Hossain, who was earlier arrested in 1999 with four others including two foreigners for involvement in a militancy campaign. The search began after detained Indian national and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) organiser Moulana Mansur Ali revealed that Bakhtiar is the founder and principal of Madrasatur Rahman al Arabia>Madrasatur Rahman al Arabia in the city's Dakkhin Khan area where he was arrested last week. There's a useful bit of information. Look closely at anything with al Arabia in its name. Monirul Islam, DB deputy commissioner (south), told The Daily Star, "Mansur joined the madrasa in 2006, but he had been in contact with Bakhtiar since he entered the country in 1995. We're looking for Bakhtiar to know the relations between the two, and their activities." Bakhtiar met Mansur, a top-listed terrorist in India, while fighting for Talibans in Afghanistan in the early 90s. He came under watch in 1999 with an intelligence agency probing the activities of Servants of Suffering Humanity International (SSHI), a Dakkhin Khan-based Islamist NGO. Seriously? They called themselves Servants of Suffering humanity, with a straight face? Honestly, the snark writes itself! Following up leads provided by intelligence officials, the Criminal investigation Department raided the Servants office and arrested five including Bakhtiar on January 25, 1999. The other detainees were Saleem of Manikganj, Shahabuddin of Chittagong, Ahmed Sadeq Ahmed, a South African national, and Mohammed Sajed, a Pakistani national. I wouldn't have thought of Bangladesh as an immigrant nation, but it appears I was wrong. During the raid, the CID team seized some important documents suggesting the NGO's links to militancy, said intelligence sources. The way the then CID authorities acted on the matter allowed the five to get off the hook, they added. Despite specific information that Saleem and Shahabuddin had firearms in their possession, no attempt was made to recover those. A case was filed against Moulana Bakhtiar for possessing a Pakistani passport. The rest four faced no specific charges and were shown arrested under Section 54 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Later, the intelligence agency that probed SSHI operations submitted a report to the government, exposing how Bakhtiar got freed in exchange for Tk 5 lakh. The agency had records of Bakhtiar's telephone conversation with his father about this whole arrangement with some CID officials. Another arrestee, Saleem, got the president of Al Markajul Islam, an Islamist NGO, to lobby successfully for his release. The intelligence agency report noted that militants will gain strength for CID's failure to prove the charges against the five. Bakhtiar's father Sarder Nuruzzaman yesterday told The Daily Star that Servants of Suffering Humanity closed its activities following the raid on its office in 1999. He also said Bakhtiar was the local coordinator of SSHI, and the South African and the Pakistani were the international coordinators. The NGO had set up 750 Kawmi madrasas in cluster villages across the country. It stopped funding those madrasas following crackdown on the NGO. Bakhtiar went into hiding after DB police arrested Mansur at a house in Saodagarbari of Dakkhin Khan on July 22. Locals said Mansur and his family would live in a room on the first floor for Tk 1,750 a month. Mansur's co-tenant said they used to live a simple life. Few relatives would visit them. Bakhtiar's father and some teachers of the madrasa denied that Bakhtiar has gone into hiding. They however admitted he has not been attending the madrasa since July 22. "He's not in hiding, he's just taking an indefinite vacation. In a country with which Bangladesh has no extradition treaty. Really, he's not in the mardrasa guest house, listening from behind the door." According to his father, Bakhtiar is around 30 years old. After completing hefz in two years he went to Pakistan sometime between 1990 and 1992 and studied in a madrasa in Karachi.

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Bangladesh

Another Lashkar man captured

2009-07-22

[Bangla Daily Star] Detective Branch of police has arrested another Indian national linked to Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the capital. The arrestee, Moulana Mohammad Mansur Ali, was also an organiser of Asif Reza Commando Force, the terrorist outfit responsible for the attack on American Centre in Kolkata on January 22, 2002. DB police claim they made the arrest swooping on a madrasa in Dakkhin Khan area on Monday night. They carried out the raid following up information gleaned from Mufti Obaidullah, an Indian and LeT operative captured in Dhaka recently. Mansur was paraded before the media at the DB headquarters yesterday. DB Deputy Commissioner Monirul Islam said the militant leader entered Bangladesh illegally from India in 1995. Under the alias Habibullah, he worked as teacher in different Islamic seminaries. Before joining Madrasatur Rahman at Saodagarbari of Dakkhin Khan, Mansur taught at Nurani Madrasa at Moralimore, Bagharpara Madrasa in Jessore, Porasunda Maktab in Habiganj and Tikarpur Madrasa at Nababganj in Dhaka. Obaidullah too had been holed up in the country as a madrasa teacher. An Afghan war veteran, Mansur was above him in the LeT hierarchy. He told reporters he was a student when he joined the Afghan war against the then Soviet troops. He said he had close relations with local Huji top brass including Mufti Hannan, Abdur Rouf, Abu Taher and Sheikh Abdus Salam. He however denied having links to any attacks staged by the Harkatul Jihad al Islami operatives in Bangladesh, another banned Islamist organisation. Trained in operation of AK-47 assault rifle, machinegun, rocket launcher and anti-aircraft weapons, Mansur returned to India in 1993. He moved back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan after the war ended in 1989. Back in India, he joined fellow Afghan war returnees in efforts to recruit youths to fight the Indian army in Jammu and Kashmir, read a DB press release. He came under Indian intelligence watch in 1994. After arrest, Mansur kept claiming that he is from Shriramkathi village under Jhikargachha upazila in Jessore. DB officials took him there for crosscheck and found his claim to be false. DC Monirul said Mansur participated in at least 25 battles in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Daud Merchant, detained Indian underworld operative, gave police leads about the LeT leaders hiding in Bangladesh. Merchant, a close aide to mafia don Daud Ibrahim, is one of those accused of killing music baron Gulshan Kumar in Mumbai in 1997. He and his associate Zahid Sheikh were arrested one and a half month ago.

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