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March 13, 2006

Bangladesh: Islamist Bomber Killed, Blows Up His Own Wife And Children

Today, news comes from the Bangladesh Daily Star and also the BBC that a bloodbath has occurred today in the semirural backwater suburb of Kaliajuri, Comilla, 55 miles east of Dhaka, the capital.

The incident developed when four members of the Rapid Action Batallion (RAB) the paramilitary force, were tracking Khaled Saifullah, one of the Majlish-e-Shura (executive council) of the Islamist terror group, Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

Saifullah had been the district leader of the Rangpur-Dinajpur region, and had been hunted since March 7 in and around Dhaka. The four RAB men, working on intelligence gained in their investigations, arrived at the area of Comilla where they thought Saifullah may have been hiding during the evening. They then summoned reinforcements to prepare a raid at the crack of dawn on Monday morning.

They expected to find Saifullah and his JMB travelling companion named Salam inside the house, but when they conducted the raid, they found the men had left the house. At the location, they found a huge cache of explosives, including 3 live bombs, grenades and detonator powder. In the house, RAB officers arrested JMB cadre Abdus Samad Mintu, and also Khaleda Akhter Rani, wife of Salam, who was taken with her two children, boys aged 7 and 5.

From Abdus Samad Mintu, RAB gained information which led them to a tin-roofed house at nearby Thomson Bridge, where they arrested the Comilla JMB leader Mustafizur Rahman, with 3 kg of gunpowder.

Samad told the officers, around 9 am local time, that the JMB had another hideout at Kaliajuri. Many of the RAB officers had left to return to Dhaka by then, but a small team of Rab-5 went to the house in Kaliajuri, a suburb of Comilla, arriving at 10,30 am.

The name of the house they were targeting was called "Jannatul Shafi", whose name means "Recommended for Paradise".

When officers initially knocked on the door, no-one responded, so they attempted to break in. Inside the house, a voice asked what they wanted. When told they were there to make arrests, the voice said that no-one would open the door, and no-one would be able to arrest those inside.

As RAB men tried to force open the door, a voice said "We'll blow up the house then."

The officers pulled back, and began trying to negotiate a surrender using a phone from another house. The man on the phone in the surrounded house gave his name as Molloh Omar, also known as Shakil. He demanded the officers put down their weapons.

Then a bomb was detonated at a window, injuring four security officers. Tear gas canisters were thrown into the house, and water hoses were sent in, to drive those inside to leave. Then guns were fired at the building, while the water and tear gas assault continued. Eventually, a 22-year old man named Alamgir, came out of the house and surrendered. Alamgir, a JMB cadre also has the aliases of Bijoy and Shaikat.

At that stage Nabil Rahman, one of those inside, was already injured from gunshot wounds. Nabil is the eldest son of Shaikh Adbur Rahman, leader of JMB, who was arrested on March 02, and is currently serving a second 10-day remand, while he is interrogated.

At about 2,15, when Nabil Rahman came near to the door, RAB men grabbed him by the hand and took him out of the building. He had been shot in the hands and forehead.

Soon after Alamgir surrendered, another bomb was set off inside the house. It appears that this blast was the one that instantly killed two young children in the house. The children, Meem, aged only one and a half, and 4-year old Sayeed were the children of Molloh Omar, alias Shakil.

A third bomb went off inside the house, which did not kill anyone, according to RAB officers.

Nabil Rahman, on the urging of the security officers tried to call to Shakil to come out of the house, but his calls were to no avail. At this time, Shakil's wife, Shahida, was apparently still alive.

There was a fourth blast, and at around 2,30 pm local time, a small group of RAB men briefly entered the house, but soon ran out. They had noticed Shahida inside, sitting and covered in clothes. At about 2.45, a large explosion happened inside the house. This fifth blast killed Shahida instantly.

After this, RAB officers again entered the house, and on the upper floor they found Shakil lying dead (above, left), wearing a yellow T-shirt and carrying bullet injuries. His body was wired up to a detonator.

The carnage on the ground floor was much worse, and later, reporters were allowed to walk inside and take photographs. One of Shahida's legs had been ripped from her body, along with one of her hands. The other hand and leg were seen to be hanging loose.

The two small children (pictured below, with the face of the younger child at extreme bottom left) had their little hands blown off, and much of the furniture had been destroyed in the explosions, some of it turned to ashes. Blood oozed from the bodies.

Seven live bombs were recovered from the house, and around 7 pm local time, these were dismantled in a nearby paddy field. The bodies were taken away around 5.30 pm.

It appears from information gathered from those arrested that Shakil was JMB's top bomb expert.

The two men originally sought by RAB, Khaled Saifullah and Salam, are still at large.

There were massive crowds still swarming around the ruined house, named "Recommended for Paradise" until after sundown. The house was owned by a Saudi Arabia expatriate, named Mohammad Yunus. His wife had rented out the house to JMB militants since January 1.

Locals found it hard to believe that in their quiet neighbourhood, where no terrorist activity had been reported, such a ghastly scenario could unfold. It is said by RAB that this peace in the environment was precisely the reason why Shakil had holed himself up in the town, where no-one suspected his young family had connections with terror.

For someone who wished to initiate Sharia Law in Bangladesh, the ultimate goal of JMB, it seems callous that Shakil, aka Molloh Omar, could sacrifice his own wife and two innocent children in so violent a manner. This sort of faith is no faith worth respecting.

Shakil had provided the explosives which were used to kill two judges in Jhalakathi on November 14 last year. In another article, the Star recounts how, as he became more and more skilled in the "art" of explosives, his JMB comrades began to call him Molloh Omar, after Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban and associate of Osama bin Laden.

Shakil's name had been mentioned by the potential suicide bomber Hasan Al Mamun, who killed the judges as they were sitting in a small minibus, being driven to work.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at March 13, 2006 5:21 PM

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