Keeping track of terrorism in South Asia is not the easiest task, but few missed the nearly 450 simultaneous low-level bombings that occurred within 30 minutes in Bangladesh on August 17, 2005 .
Since then, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its three governmental coalition partners (that include two Islamic parties: the venerable Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party and the much smaller Islami Oikya Jote Jamaat (IOJ)) have been working to disrupt violent Islamic extremist groups. Unfortunately, the Great Bard himself likely could not have made the Islamic extremism situation in Bangladesh more complex or the stakes higher.
A Bloody, Bawdy Villain
A myriad of terrorist and extremist groups continue to pressure both the Dhaka government and their neighbor India . Many longstanding groups have linkages to Pakistani extremists and intelligence service officers that were established prior to and during Bangladesh’s breakaway from Punjabi West Pakistan in 1971. In the last 25 years, these groups have built, grown, and strengthened while new groups have formed, inspired by the likes of al-Qaeda and cared and fed from regional and local patrons. Their coming-out party occurred in February 1998 when an Osama Bin Laden fatwa carried a signature from the “Jihad Movement in Bangladesh,” a likely catch-all term that includes several terrorist groupings.
The most notorious Bangladeshi terrorist group is the Jamaat ul Mujahedin Bangladesh (JMB) , the leader of the August 17 attacks and the first group to conduct a suicide bombing in Bangladesh in November 2005 . Close behind are the Harakat ul Jihad ul Islami ? Bangladesh ; the Jagrato Muslim Janata ? Bangladesh and nearly a half dozen other violent Islamist groups. No reliable estimate exists on the number of violent Islamists in Bangladesh, but a recent article by South Asian expert Selig Harrison put the count at around 15,000.
In addition, a large number of Islamists sympathetic to the cause have infiltrated the Bangladesh financial sector, Islamic schools, and government institutions, leveraging sympathizers in the Prime Minister’s coalition government.
Finally, numerous media reports and independent investigations have determined that dozens of terrorist camps may be operating in Bangladesh near Chittagong and in the wooded northern and east parts of the country.
Here’s Metal More Attractive
Following the spectacular August 17, 2005 attacks, Prime Minister Zia tried to get serious. Police arrested terrorist ringleaders, to include JMB leaders Abdur Rahman and the notorious and well-known JMB terrorist Bangla Bhai. Following suicide bombings in November 2005, Bangladeshi authorities arrested JMB leader Aman Ullah in Chittagong. Police have detained dozens of others.
In December, Zia initiated a series of emergency discussions with a broad range of political parties regarding the Bangladeshi terrorist threat. While well intentioned, these talks mostly degenerated in to politically driven name-calling sessions. The government continues to attack terrorist networks, but the police and security services are outmatched by the size and complexity of terrorist infrastructures in the country. Raids and arrests will slow the growth but will not get at the underlying support structures or the root causes of Islamic violence.
To Be or Not To Be
Prime Minister Zia continues to be in a trap of her own making. Numerous observers allege that Zia’s own coalition members, particularly members of the JI, are directly and indirectly supporting terrorists and using their governmental positions to entrench supporters in the bureaucracy, infiltrate the financial sector, and blunt police investigations. TRC judges that while not all JI politicians support Islamic violence, some are providing assistance to Islamic extremists and are enabling the violent wing of the Islamist extremist movement.
In the meantime, despite benefiting from fairly healthy economic conditions based on exports and a growth rate last year of over 6 percent, Bangladesh continues to suffer from official corruption, high crime rates, periodic natural disasters, and uneven long-term investment, all of which both undercut the positive effects of its export-driven economy and sustain some entrenched poverty. The United Nations estimates for 2005 indicate nearly 80 percent of Bangladeshis live on under $2 per day; fertile ground for Islamic extremists in this mostly Muslim country.
Overall, no amount of police work or good intentions from Zia’s government is going to counter the growing problem of Islamic extremism in Bangladesh. The best solution is governmental suicide and a new majority or coalition configuration emerging from Bangladesh’s 2007 elections. TRC, however, is not optimistic.
The 2007 elections will likely be a replay of the 2001 season in which Zia’s BNP party squared off against her arch-rival, Sheikh Hasina Wajed and the Awami League, that resulted in the current BNP coalition of convenience. Zia is shoring up support in preparation for 2007, to include the distasteful move last week of bring the country’s former dictator, Hossain Mohammed Ershad, into the government coalition. Ershad spent six years in jail in the 1990s and is currently out on bail. He remains popular, however, with Bangladeshi nationalists and may well bring extra seats in the government that Zia will need to defeat Wajed again. Ershad’s recent arrangement with Zia will not, however, eliminate her ongoing need for JI support.
Regardless of the outcome of January’s elections, the only long-term winners in Zia’s recent reign have been violent Islamists. Even under the best political conditions, it will take years to reverse the gains they have made since 2001.
