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March 30, 2007

Bangladesh: High Security After Islamist Leaders' Executions

News from Associated Press, Reuters, the Daily Star and The New Nation:

The individuals pictured above are - Top Row, l-r - Abdur Rahman, Siddiqul Islam (aka Bangla Bhai), and Ataur Rahman or "Sunny", the younger brother of Abdur Rahman. Bottom Row, l-r - Abdul Awal, Khaled Saifullah and Iftekhar al Mamun.

Earlier today (late on Thursday night, Bangladesh time) all six were hanged. On May 29, 2006 the six had been sentenced to death at the Jalakathi Additional District and Sessions Court in the southwest of Bangladesh. They had all been found guilty of the murders of two judges at Jhalakathi on November 14, 2005.

Two judges had been in a minibus being taken to work when a young man (Iftekhar Hasan Al Mamun) had come forward and thrown a bomb. Senior Assistant Judge of Nalchhiti Upazila Sohel Ahmed (32) was killed instantly. Senior Assistant Judge of Jhalakathi, Sadar Upazila, Jagannath Pandey (35) died on the journey to hospital. The blast tore off the roof of the microbus, and the bomber, Mamun, was injured. In a sign of what was to happen later, Mamun had with him a "suicide-bomb" attached to his leg. On the ambulance journey to hospital, he tried to detonate this.

This event was closely followed by a double suicide bombing on November 29, 2005 at two courthouses - one in Chittagong in the southeast of the country, and one in Gazipur in the center of the nation. At least ten people died in these attacks. The 2005 suicide attacks at the courthouses were the handiwork of Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh or JMB.

On December 1, 2005 another suicide bomber attacked a Chittagong courthouse. Two policemen died, but miraculously the suicide bomber, who had both his legs and also his hands blown off, managed to survive long enough to give information. He said that in Shakhipur upazila, Tangail district, there were 25 mosques which were used by the leaders of the JMB to plot bombings.These mosques were built with money from the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS), a Kuwait-based group which sponsors attempts to destabilize countries so that they become Islamist. RIHS was designated as a terrorist entity by the US on January 9, 2002

The 2005 post-Ramadan suicide bombings had been predicted. Previously, Islamists' bombs had been planted, or thrown at, their intended targets.

JMB had brought Bangladesh to a standstill on August on August 17, 2005 when about 400 small explosive devices were set off virtually simultaneously across Bangladesh. 63 out of the nation's 64 districts were affected, 100 people were injured and two people, including a small boy, were killed. At the scene of each explosion, leaflets were found, threatening more bombs against the judiciary, if the democratic country did not immediately adopt Sharia law. The bombings had been financed by RIHS, through Dr Muhammad Asadullah al-Ghalib, a professor of Arabic at Rajshahi University. Ghalib headed the group Ahle Hadith Andolon Bangladesh (AHAB), which had built the 25 mosques in Shakhipur upazila, Tangail district, which had been used by the group, and also by JMJB.

JMB had committed numerous bomb attacks before August 17 2005 and JMJB had committed murders, but strangely the government of the time had deliberately chosen to pretend the latter group did not exist. On January 26, 2005, the State Minister for Home, Lutfozzaman Babar, had said: "We don't know officially about the existence of the JMJB. Only some so-called newspapers are publishing reports on it. We don't have their constitution in our record."

There are two reasons for the coalition government's denial of the extent of terrorism. The first is that previously, the JMB primarily had tried to assassinate members of the opposition Awami League party. The second reason is that politicians within the coalition had direct links to JMB. Just days before the Chittagong and Gazipur courthouse suicide bombings, the government had made a large donation to RIHS, to sponsor the building mosques and madrassas.

The JMB had a ruling council of seven members, called the Shura. All seven members of this Shura had links with one of the parties within the government coalition - the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, the Islami Chhatra Shabir. This latter group has involved in death threats and murders of academics.

Currently there is no government in Bangladesh. The four-party coalition dissolved itself in November, to prepare its election campaigns, for an election which should have taken place in January. Currently the son of the previous prime minister (Khaleda Zia) is under investigation for fraud. The country is being "managed" by an electoral commission.

What is so important about the hanging today of these six individuals is that two of them (Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai) are the heads of the two main Islamist terror groups in the country, and these two in association with Ataur "Sunny" Rahman are the three key figures in the heirarchy of JMB.

Ataur Rahman was arrested on December 14, 2005. He admitted that JMB is mainly funded from the Middle East, from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, Sudan and some other Middle Eastern countries and some Islamic NGOs, and moneyed men of these countries donated the money for establishing the 'Rule of Allah'. Ataur Rahman is the younger brother of the leader of JMB, Abdur Rahman.

Abdur Rahman had escaped detection sometimes by his own guile and sometimes by bad luck on the part of security officers. He was finally arrested on March 2, 2006 at a house in which he had hidden in the town of Sylhet, Sylhet district, in the northeast of the country. Before he finally surrendered, he had withstood a siege.

A few days later, on March 6, 2006, Bangla Bhai, aka Siddiqul Islam, was captured in Mymensingh district, in the north of the country. Rather than giving himself up to members of RAB (the Rapid Action Battalion), Bangla Bhai tried to blow himself up. He was taken to Mymensingh Hospital, suffering from burns, splinters and loss of blood.

As well as being the second in command of JMB, Bangla Bhai also had his own terror group, called Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh or JMJB. This group, whose name means "Vigilant Muslim Citizens, Bangladesh" had been operating for six years before Bangla Bhai "went public" in a shared news conference with Abdur Rahman in May 2004.

JMJB had specialized in killing and torturing communists ("atheists"), and appeared to have police support. They also tortured and killed innocent villagers, such as Badsha Mia (pictured) of the village of Raninagar, Naogaon. Badsha Mia had been hung upside down from a tree and tortured to death, while his screams were broadcast via a microphone and speakers to the rest of the village. Police in the village did nothing to intervene.

Abdul Awal who was also hanged today was the son-in-law of Adur Rahman, the chief of JMB who was captured from a Thakurgaon bus stand on November 18, 2005. He too had been on the Shura of JMB. Khaled Saifullah was also a Shura member. He was arrested in April, 2006.

Today's hangings have effectively wiped out the main leaders and thinkers in the JMB elite. The hangings took place almost simultaneously at various prisons where the convicts had been held. Khaled Saifullah was hanged in Pabna jail, while Ataur Rahman Sunny and Iftekhar Hasan Mamun (the killer of the two judges) were hanged in Kashimpur jail, Gazipur. Abdul Awal was hanged at Mymensingh jail, along with Bangla Bhai. Abdur Rahman was hanged at Comilla jail.

The date of the hangings had come as a surprise. Only last week, Deputy Inspector General of prisons Maj. Shamsul Haider Siddiqui said that the six men would not be hanged until April.

Following news of the hangings, Bangladesh has been placed under high security alert. Though the existing JMB leadership has been hanged (with two remaining Shura members in prison), there are signs that JMB has been regrouping. Six JMB activists were arrested last Saturday (March 24) after a raid on an Islamic school in Jamalpur district, 90 miles north of the capital, Dhaka. Explosives and grenade casings were seized in the raid.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at March 30, 2007 8:33 PM

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