Consensus is growing in Bangladesh that despite the proliferation of small political parties ? some of which are prone to violence ? spouting hardline religious rhetoric, the spate of bombings across the country in 2005 can primarily be attributed to Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh and likely Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh as well. The government outlawed these two groups in 2005. Then, on August 17, 2005, the country fell victim to a coordinated attack of unprecedented scale ? at least 500 small bombs exploded across the country in nearly every major town and city . Although the investigation into those attacks led authorities to an impressive raid on September 9 that surely thwarted a second massive terrorist strike, interrogation of suspects related to a comparatively small attack on the Bangladeshi judiciary last week suggests that a drift by radicalized militants down the path of suicide terrorism may nearly be complete. Once the threshold of suicide terrorist attacks is crossed, Bangladesh could become even more violent and deadly than Sri Lanka or even Iraq since its population is so high and dense.

On February 17, 2005, Islamic radicals fire-bombed two international aid organizations, including inter alia the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), wounding eight people . The subsequent investigation identified some 20 suspects with links to Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, finally prompting the ruling coalition to ban the two groups. Suspicions had been mounting, too, from the opposition Awami League that those or like-minded groups were behind a host of other political attacks, extending back through 2004 ? to include the January 2005 firebomb attack against former Finance Minister Shah A.M.S. Kibria . Bangladesh is governed by a four-party alliance that includes two Islamic parties, Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Oikya Jote; Awami League members posit they, therefore, must tread lightly in pursuit of radicalized Islamic groups.