Author: Bertil Lintner
Publication: Outlook
Date: December 16, 2002
URL: http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20021216&fname=bangla&sid=1
Introduction: 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
More than three million Muslim devotees
from 52 countries gathered along the bank of the Turag river, 30 kilometres
north of Dhaka, at Tongi, Gazipur, for the three-day annual Biswa Ijtema
(World Congregation) between December 14 and 16, 2002.
The significance of the event was
underlined by the profile of political leaders who attended: present at
the 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. The Ijtema
is organised annually by the Tablighi Jamaat.
The Biswa Ijtema, the second largest
congregation of Muslims in the world after the Hajj, ended peacefully 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 the role the country has come to
play in the context of international Islamic brotherhood.
Although the government in Dhaka
has reacted fiercely to any suggestion that the country is becoming a haven
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
ship from Karachi to Chittagong. They were then trucked down to hidden
camps in the Ukhia area, south of Cox's Bazaar. Local people report seeing
heavily armed men, with a few Bangladeshis among them, in those camps.
They were told that they would be killed if anyone told 'outsiders' about
this regrouping of ex- Afghanistan fighters in this remote corner of southeastern
Bangladesh.
According to other reports from
Asian security services, militants from the Jemaah Islamiah - which is
connected 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 1990s
to train rebels from the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar's Rakhine
State. In more recent years, these camps 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 Western
targets 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 and
Singaporean citizens. It is, however, uncertain to what extent the Bangladeshi
security services have been involved in their relocation. But, well-placed
local sources say that it would have been impossible without at least some
tacit agreement with the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI),
Bangladesh's chief intelligence 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 least 18
persons were killed and 300 injured in bomb blasts in four cinema halls
in the central Bangladeshi town of Mymensingh 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 that an "identified fanatic
terrorist group within [the ruling] alliance is behind these heinous bomb
blasts." The international news agency, Reuters first reported that Home
Minister Altaf Hossain Chowdhury had said that bin Laden's Al Qaeda network
was behind the blast, but later had to retract the report after denials
from the Minister.
Subsequently, the police raided
the local office of Reuters in Dhaka. Dozens of opposition activists were
also arrested, but no link to them could be established. The raid on Reuters
and the arrest of opposition politicians came only days after a British
TV team and their local helpers had been arrested for trying to document
the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh and its possible consequences
on the country's non-Muslim minorities.
Many foreign observers may contend
that the Bangladeshi authorities are simply overreacting to international
press coverage, but it could also be that the DGFI has too much to hide,
and therefore wants to silence any reports 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 fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami,
which has two Ministers in the present government. Its youth organisation,
the Islami Chhatra Shibir (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 and over a 100 others injured. The same government-connected
outfit is also suspected of being behind several other 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-Bangladesh
border, the Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), which also has links
to the Al Qaeda. Video footage released by the American cable television
network CNN in August this year and obtained from Al Qaeda, shows Rohingyas
as well as Bangladeshis training in camps near the country's southeastern
border, but well inside Bangladesh.
Al Qaeda's involvement in Bangladesh
was confirmed in September this year, when the police in Dhaka arrested
seven '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 Rohingya refugees, but later
became involved in running Islamic centres all over the country. The so-
called Institute has been named by several sources as a front for the Al
Qaeda. Perhaps not surprisingly, nothing came out of the 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 playing
host to international terrorist movements, and that it is a reliable partner
in the global war on terror. But this ostrich-like mentality may change
as more evidence to the contrary comes to light.
The arrests of foreign journalists
and the raid on Reuters in Dhaka are worrying signs of increasing intolerance
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 international attention 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 Asia Intelligence Review
of the South Asia Terrorism Portal)
