Shakhawat Hossain
International Crisis Group (IGC) has warned that the
existing Bangladesh’s hostile political environment could lead to a resurgence
of jihadist militancy.
ICG has also urged
the government to forge broad social and political consensus and pressed for
pursuing more accountability in law enforcement and justice system as well as
stopping politically-motivated crackdowns.
In a report released on Wednesday, it said there is a
growing risk that Islamist militants will exploit the fallout created by political
polarisation with the general elections approaching.
The study, Countering
Jihadist Militancy in Bangladesh, says the lull in violence in recent months
‘may prove as a temporary respite’.
The Bangladeshi jihadi landscape is now dominated by banned
outfits, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh or JMB and Ansar al-Islam, according
to ICG.
“The state confronted groups
responsible for an earlier wave of violence with some success from 2004
to 2008. Subsequently, especially since controversial January 2014
elections, bitter political divisions have reopened space for new forms of
jihadist activism,” it read.
Putting BNP chief
Khaleda Zia behind the bars for graft, the organisation said it signals the
opening of a new wave of political infighting reminiscent of January 2014
and 2015.
“Alleged extrajudicial killings,
enforced disappearances and indiscriminate government crackdowns on political
rivals are occurring at the expense of a counter-terrorism strategy that is
needed to address growing jihadist activism and expanding links to
transnational groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.”
The ICG report says a faction of the JMB appears to have
links with the Islamic State and describes Ansar al-Islam as affiliated with
al-Qaeda’s South Asian chapter.
Bangladesh’s recent
history of jihadism dates back to the late 1990s with the Afghanistan war
veterans returning to the country, the study says.
It said the ‘first
wave of violence’, involving JMB and Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh or
HuJI,B, peaked with the JMB’s August 2005 synchronised explosions
in 63 districts.
“Successive governments subsequently
took action against the JMB’s leadership, but the group has revived itself,
albeit in a new form. Another group, Ansar-al Islam, has also emerged, while a
JMB splinter – dubbed the “neo-Jamaat-ul Mujahideen” by law enforcement
agencies – calls itself the Islamic State-Bangladesh and has funnelled fighters
into Iraq and Syria,” reads the ICG report.
Concluding that
contentious politics have played a role in the second wave of violence, the
organisation says Ansar-al Islam found the trials of 1971 war
crimes as an assault on Islam and perpetrated attacks on secular activists and
bloggers, who demanded capital punishment for war criminals.
The JMB, however, has
a longer list of enemies, according to ICG. “It considers perceived symbols of
the secular state and anyone not subscribing to its interpretation of Islam as
legitimate targets.”
Bangladesh Police have claimed the group played a part in
attacks claimed by ISIS on prominent members of minority communities and
religious facilities and events, including Ahmadi mosques, Sufi shrines,
Buddhist and Hindu temples, and Shia festivals.
“An attack on a Dhaka café on 1-2
July 2016 that killed over twenty people, mostly foreigners,
appears to have involved loose cooperation between different groups, including
both rural-based madrasa students and elite urban young men,” reads the ICG
study.
The IGC report says
the ruling Awami League has ‘politicised the threat’ and its crackdowns on
rivals undermine efforts to disrupt jihadist recruitment and attacks”.
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