DT e-Paper, Friday, Decdember 2, 2016

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2 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2016 DT News New evidence shows deep IS role in Gulshan restaurant attack • Reuters Before Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury orchestrated Bangladesh’s worst militant attack, he sought and won approval for it from Islamic State. A Canadian of Bangladeshi origin, he was told by his contact in the militant group, Abu Terek Mohammad Tajuddin Kausar, to target foreigners, according to a senior police official who has seen communications between the two men. Chowdhury, located in Bangladesh at the time, proposed an attack on a Dhaka eatery frequented by expatriates. On July 1, a group of gunmen stormed the Holey Artisan café in the city’s Gulshan neighbourhood, murdering 22 people, most of them foreigners, in an overnight siege that shocked the country. The back-and-forth between Chowdhury, 30, and Kausar, 35, which includes drafts of articles later published in Islamic State magazines, has not been previously reported. Together with attempts by people linked to Islamic State to recruit and fund militancy in the country, the documents show the extremist organisation has built deeper connections with Bangladeshi militants than was previously known. The police official declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the information. Reuters could not independently verify the contents of the communications. As Islamic State comes under pressure in its home base of Syria and Iraq, its activities in outposts such as Bangladesh could intensify, experts have said. The extent of Islamic State’s influence in Bangladesh will be key to the country’s garment sector that employs millions of people and earns $28bn a year in exports. Any sign the global jihadi network is making inroads could force Western brands to look elsewhere for cheap clothes. In the year before the cafe atrocity, a string of grisly individual murders, including of bloggers and foreigners, had already raised the alarm for overseas investors. In its Rumiyah magazine published after the café massacre, Islamic State claimed two dozen attacks in the country since September 2015. The claim could not be independently verified. Local militants or Islamic State? After the siege, police raided suspected jihadi hideouts and said they killed dozens of militants and arrested hundreds more. Holey Artisan Bakery Still, the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said Islamic State does not exist in the impoverished South Asian nation of 160 million people, and instead blames the rise in political violence on the Islamist opposition. Opposition leaders deny any link and say it can be traced to the bitter rivalry, which has long poisoned politics in the country, between Hasina’s ruling Awami League and its main rival, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), as well as Jamaat-e-Islami. “These are all home-grown people,” said Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan, adding that the siege militants belonged to a new faction of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a banned group he said had ties to the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami party. An aide to Hasina said that, while local militant groups had links with Islamic State, the extent of support was limited. “They are not an organised group here. People with Islamic State links are here. But that is not to say Islamic State is here.” Funding and recruiting Bangladesh police first came to know about Chowdhury around fall of last year, but they did not know his whereabouts, the police official said. In December, Dhaka police seized about 3.9m taka ($50,000) destined for a close associate of Chowdhury’s. The money, which the police official said was sent via the informal The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said Islamic State does not exist in the impoverished South Asian nation of 160 million people, and instead blames the rise in political violence on the Islamist opposition hawala cash transfer network, came from a UK-based company. The company’s founder, Siful Sujan, was killed a few days later in Syria. At the time, investigators could not establish the money had been sent on Islamic State’s instructions, the police official said. Chowdhury’s group, meanwhile, was recruiting. Tanvir Kaderi and his wife, Abedatul Fatema, had a comfortable middle-class life in Dhaka, with two children and steady jobs. “We were a very happy family,” Kaderi’s son Mohammed Tahrim Kaderi Abir wrote in a confession presented before a magistrate. Abir, an eighth grade student, wrote that his parents’ behaviour started to change after they went on the Haj pilgrimage in 2014. After that, Kaderi told a preacher he had dreamed he was standing REUTERS with a weapon in his hand in the middle of a desert. Kaderi also started spending time with acquaintances from the local mosque, who introduced the family to others, including associates of Chowdhury. They in turn preached to the family about faith and jihad and showed them videos of the war in Syria. One gave them a copy of Dabiq magazine, an Islamic State publication, according to the confession. The preparations for the café attack began at least as early as June, around the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to Abir’s confession. Kaderi rented an apartment in Basundhara area of Dhaka, near the cafe. A few days later the five militants who conducted the attack showed up at the house. Kaderi’s family moved to Dhaka’s old city the night of the raid. Magazine interviews Chowdhury was killed on August 27. That and the other raids gave police access to his correspondence with Kausar. In one, Chowdhury was asked by Kausar to answer questions for an interview, which was eventually published in Dabiq in April under the nom de guerre Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif. Al-Hanif was identified in the magazine as head of Islamic State in Bangladesh. In another, Chowdhury sent the draft of an article about the café attack, which was published after his death in Rumiyah magazine, the police official said. Kausar’s mother said he moved to Australia in 2006 and she had not heard from him since before the attack. Tahera Begum, who lives in a town 135 miles from Dhaka, said she did not know whether he had links with Islamic State. Before his death, Chowdhury made Kaderi the new point of contact with Kausar, the police official said. At around 7:30 pm on September 10, police knocked on the door of Kaderi’s apartment, where his wife, one of his sons and some associates were hiding. In the ensuing chaos, police were attacked with grenades and knives, while some women in the apartment threw chili powder at them. Kaderi ran into a room. As they tried to apprehend him, he swung a scythe at police, who were using his son as a shield. Kaderi told his son, “If you get hit, you will either be martyred or Allah will reward you.” By the time the raid was over, Kaderi had slit his own throat. The last known link to Islamic State in Bangladesh was dead, although the police official said they did not know if anyone else was in contact with the militant group. Political strife Opposition leaders accuse the government of using militancy as an excuse to stifle dissent. “A democracy deficit is definitely encouraging the extremists,” said Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, BNP’s secretary general who spent months in jail and now faces prosecution in dozens of cases. The Jamaat leadership has gone into hiding after several of its top leaders were executed during the past two years for war crimes committed during the country’s 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. In an email, Maqbul Ahmad, the head of the party, denied any connections with JMB or other militants. “The government is consistently denying the actual presence of terrorism in Bangladesh,” Ahmad wrote. “Rather they are using it as an effective instrument of repression of Islamists.” Soon after the café attack, the government placed a bounty of Tk2m ($25,000) on Chowdhury’s head. A series of raids on militant hideouts followed. By October 3 police said they had killed 42 militants and arrested at least 221 people, according to an internal police report. Militant groups, including a faction ideologically linked to al Qaeda, have gone quiet and police say the overall security situation is under control, although the threat is not over. •
News 3 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2016 DT Hasina: This land is not for militancy • UNB Reiterating her government’s “zero tolerance policy” against terrorism and militancy, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said no one will be allowed to use Bangladesh’s soil for terrorist acts against any country. "We won’t tolerate any sort of terrorism and militancy and won't allow our land to be used for carrying out terrorist acts against any country," she told visiting Indian Defence Minister Manohar Gopalkrishna Prabhu Parrikar who met Hasina at her official residence Ganabhaban here in the afternoon. After the meeting, PM’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed reporters. Sheikh Hasina recalled with gratitude the contributions of Indian armed forces to Bangladesh's Liberation War in 1971. The prime minister said she would honour those valiant Indian armed forces personnel who embraced martyrdom in the Liberation War during her upcoming visit to India. In reply, the Indian defence minister said: "It was our moral responsibility to extend help to Bangladesh during the Liberation War as a friendly country and we provided that assistance.” Sheikh Hasina thanked the Indian Coast Guards for rescuing Bangladeshi fishermen and handing Home boss: Rohingyas to return to Myanmar • Kamrul Hasan As the United Nations have claimed that some 10,000 Rohingya Muslims entered Bangladesh recently, Home Minster Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday said that his government did not have information on the exact number, but insisted that they must go back to Myanmar. “Since the end of the Liberation War, some 250,000 Pakistanis have remained stranded in Bangladesh while we have already given shelter to some 500,000 Rohingyas. We do not know how many Rohingyas have managed to enter the country recently,” the minister said at a programme in Dhaka. Mentioning about the foreign minister’s recent briefing on Bangladesh’s stance, Kamal said: “We are communicating with the international community and urging them to take strong position against oppression on the Rohingya people.” Since the Myanmar military started the fresh spell of crackdown in Rohingya-dominated Rakhine state in October, Bangladesh tightened security at the border to Visiting Indian Defence Minister Manohar Gopalkrishna Prabhu Parrikar calls on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her official residence Ganabhaban yesterday FOCUS BANGLA over them to Bangladesh authorities recently. The Indian defence minister offered training for Bangladesh Coast Guard personnel for increasing their capability further. Parrikar highly appreciated Bangladesh's tremendous socioeconomic development, particularly in women empowerment, under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s stop influx – ignoring massive outrage by rights activists, political parties and Islamists to allow them. UN refugee agency UNHCR late last month asked Bangladesh to open its border for the Rohingyas, saying over 30,000 have been displaced from their homes. Since then, BGB and Coast Guard have pushed back several boats carrying Rohingyas on the Naff River after giving them humanitarian assistance. Despite that several hundred Rohingyas have entered Bangladesh with the help of human traffickers in Teknaf and taken shelter at different makeshift camps, according to local sources. But the UNHCR on Wednesday said based on reports by various humanitarian agencies that there could be 10,000 new arrivals in recent weeks. Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency in Bangkok said: “The situation is fast changing and the actual number could be much higher.” In 2012, more than 100 people were killed in violence in Rakhine and some 125,000 Rohingyas took refuge in camps for internally displaced persons while some entered Bangladesh to save their life. able leadership. "Bangladesh has made impressive development in various sectors, especially women empowerment, which India could not do," he noted. Parrikar later handed over a replica of a helicopter that India used during Bangladesh's War of Liberation and photographs of paratroopers who took part in the war. The home minister yesterday said that they would sit with the Myanmar authorities to facilitate deportation of the Rohingyas in Bangladesh. In September, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told Myanmar State Councillor Aung San Suu Kyi that the Rohingya issue should be solved by the two next-door neighbours after Suu Kyi sought her help. The Myanmar leader, who was awarded with Nobel Peace Prize, said an international commission, led by former UN chief Kofi Annan, was looking into the crisis. In August 2014, Myanmar agreed to take back the Rohingyas stranded in Bangladesh after the eighth foreign secretary-level talks in Dhaka. Even though the process of repatriating 2,415 Rohingyas from the two camps was supposed to begin within two months, it did not happen. It was for the first time Myanmar agreed to take back Rohingyas from Bangladesh after 2005. Earthquake a major concern Issuing a note of warning on the possible loss of lives if a strong earthquake strikes Bangladesh, the PM's International Affairs Adviser Dr Gowher Rizvi, Principal Staff Officer of the Armed Forces Division Lt Gen Mahfuzur Rahman, PM's Military Secretary Major General Mia Mohammad Joynul Abedin, PMO Secretary Surayia Begum and Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Harsha Vardhan Shringla were, among others, present at the meeting. • home minister said that the government was working to strengthen its capabilities to mitigate loss from disasters. “It took 21 days to complete rescue and salvage operation at the Rana Plaza site. What may happen if an earthquake strikes?” Kamal also said that the government had planned to buy equipment worth Tk450 crore and set up fire service camps at every upazila in phases. Disaster Management and Relief Secretary Shah Kalam said that the last deadly earthquake had taken place on June 12, 1897 in Sylhet – originated from the Dawki Fault. Another tremor from the same fault was felt at Shreemangal, Moulvibazar in 1928. “It means some 119 years have passed and a major earthquake can take place anytime – devastating for Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet,” Kalam said, stressing that the country needs more volunteers to work during disasters. “The government with the support of Save the Children and SEEP is providing three-day training to people to create a team of 62,000 volunteers. Some 32,000 have already been trained,” the secretary claimed. • Manohar wraps up visit • UNB Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar yesterday wrapped up his two-day visit proposing a number of new initiatives to enhance the capacity and capabilities of the Bangladesh Armed Forces. A range of initiatives for enhancing training engagements, conduct of joint exercises and ‘Blue Economy’ initiatives were discussed during the visit. He was accompanied by the Vice Chiefs of the Army and Air Force, Deputy Chief of Navy, Director General of Coast Guard and senior Defence Ministry officials. • Vajiralongkorn proclaimed king of Thailand • Reuters Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, 64, became Thailand's new king on Thursday after he accepted an invitation from parliament to succeed his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died in October. King Bhumibol, 88, was widely loved and regarded as a pillar of stability during decades of political turbulence and rapid development in the Southeast Asian nation. Prince Vajiralongkorn, who will be known as King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun, according to a statement released by the government's public relations department, met Pornpetch Wichitcholchai, president of the National Legislative Assembly, at Bangkok's Dusit Palace. "I would like to accept the invitation for the benefit of the Thai people," the new king said in a televised statement. The new king will also be known as Rama X, or the 10th king of Thailand's Chakri Dynasty. Vajiralongkorn, 64, who inherits one of the world's richest monarchies as well as a politically troubled nation, will ascend the throne 50 days after King Bhumibol Adulyadej's death. As dusk fell in Bangkok, the prince arrived at the Grand Palace where his father's body lies in state for religious rites to mark the 50th day since his death. Coronation for Thailand's new king will take place after late king bhumibol adulyadej's cremation. •
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