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Resurgence of Al-Qaeda in South Asia Post-US DrawdownThe situation in Bangladesh needs closer attention. The Muslim nation,on India's eastern flank, is home to a host of terrorist and extremistorganisations, many of them with old ties to al-Qaeda. Groups likeJamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) have had support from politicalparties as well as security forces. Extremist groups like Hizb-ut Tahrir arepoisoning the minds of the youth. New terrorist groups like AnsarulBangla Team and Hizb-ut Tawhid have come up recently and are eager tojoin either ISIS or al-Qaeda. Several Bangladeshis are part of ISIS in Syria.Political instability has sharpened the religious divide between the rightwingIslamic groups like Jamat-e-Islami and liberal political parties likeAwami League. There is also, worryingly, increasing radicalism in thecountry as evident from the targeting of secular writers and critics ofreligious extremism. The killing of Ananta Bijoy Das in May 2015 was themost recent incident in what is becoming a worrying trend in Bangladesh.The volatile situation as it exists today in Bangladesh presents al-Qaedawith an opportunity to expand its support base beyond Pakistan. Theplans of HuJI's Bangladesh (HuJI-B) chapter to merge with AQIShighlights this emerging threat. The arrest of the alleged members ofHuJI-B in July 2015 revealed plans of a series of joint attacks to be88undertaken by the two groups. This could help al-Qaeda to overcome itsfailure to find a perch in India despite consistent efforts.Not that al Qaeda has given up on India. Illustrative of the al-Qaeda plan89is the Burdwan (West Bengal, India) incident in October 2014, in whichan accidental blast blew the lid on a major JMB operation to launchterrorist attacks in Bangladesh. Investigations revealed the presence ofrudimentary training camps in West Bengal where men and women werebeing trained to make bombs and carry out subversive activities. Thediscovery of al-Qaeda literature and other evidence lend weight to thewww.orfonline.org 39