British jihadis in Bangladesh fanning

flames of extremism, says Dhaka

Bangladeshi prime minister urges action to tackle recruiters from UK
Bengali diaspora communities, as extremist groups, including Isis, gain
support

Pro
test by supporters of Bangladeshs leading Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, turned violent after the execution
of its leader Abdul Quader Mollah in 2013. Photograph: Andrew Biraj/Reuters

Simon Tisdall and Anna Ridout in Dhaka-Wednesday 16 September 2015

The prime minister of Bangladesh has warned David Cameron that he

needs to do more to combat radicalism amid concerns that British jihadis
are fuelling a rise in extremism in the worlds third most populous Muslim
nation.
Security and intelligence experts in Dhaka says British jihadis are stoking an
Islamist revival in Bangladesh, schooling a new generation of young
religious radicals sympathetic to Isis.

Recruiters and extremist funding from Britains Bengali diaspora

communities are encouraging locals to join the cause of international jihad,
and the number of Bangladeshis involved in salafi groups is rising, the
experts say.
The British government should take more steps on the ground, the
Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed told the Guardian.
Jamaat [-e-Islami Bangladeshs leading Islamist party] has a strong
influence in east London. Thats true. They are collecting money, they are
sending money.
The warnings come after the arrest in Dhaka last month of Touhidur
Rahman, a British man of Bangladeshi origin, who is alleged by police to be
the mastermind behind the machete murders of two secular bloggers by
Islamists earlier this year.
Several other cases linking individuals from Britains Bengali population to
extremist groups active in Bangladesh and elsewhere, including Jamaat-ulMujahideen (JMB), Islamic State and al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent
(AQIS), have come to light in recent months.
Most recently, it emerged that two of the three British citizens recruited by
Isis and killed by British and US drone strikes in Syria last month Ruhul
Amin and Reyaad Khan were of Bangladeshi origin.
Security analysts, intelligence specialists and former officials in Dhaka warn
that Bangladesh, a severely impoverished, low-middle income country with
about 160 million people, is increasingly ripe for radicalisation.

Bangladeshs prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed: The British government should take more steps on the
ground. Photograph: Reuters

Although the number of domestic terror attacks has fallen, in part due to a
government crackdown, Sunni Muslim Bangladesh is undergoing a
fundamentalist revival akin to that in Pakistan and several Middle East
countries, the analysts said, and the lull in terrorist activity could quickly be
reversed.
Isis has its eye on Bangladesh, said an ex-army intelligence specialist,
who like most of the people interviewed for this report asked not be
identified.
Unofficially, the number of Bangladeshis going to fight in Syria and Iraq is
up to 30. Bangladesh is becoming a transit route to Isis from India. We also
have growing numbers of Bangladeshi diaspora guys coming here from
Britain to recruit, the intelligence specialist said.
Fertile ground awaits the foreign visitors. There are very strong pockets of
fundamentalism throughout Bangladesh, said the director of an NGO
specialising in security issues. Jamaat-e-Islami [JEI] has a lot of grassroots
support.
There are very large numbers of young men who dont have a job or any
prospects. Their only experience is the madrasa [religious school] and the
mosque. In rural areas they dont even have access to social media.

These people want to be used, so they are very easily manipulated. When
Bengalis from the UK come in, they are very easy to lead. The jihadi
recruiters are coming from London, from Germany, from the US. They are
educated, they have been to university, so they are more sophisticated,
the director said.
The lack of government services and political exclusion [JEI has been
barred from standing in national elections] has created space for the
fundamentalists. They tell people: come to the mosque, follow religious
rules, bring your friends. It is all softly, softly These kids will do whatever
theyre told. Nobody asks any questions of religious leaders. If the leaders
say do it, they do it.
Britain and the US have backed the governments hardline counter-terrorist
stance, despite its negative impact on civil liberties. But Dhaka insiders say
they are missing the bigger picture: the below-the-radar, large-scale
radicalisation of younger generations.
Hasina defended her zero-tolerance approach to terrorism, which has
provoked fierce criticism from human rights groups. She insisted the
security situation in Bangladesh was under control.
[The fundamentalist groups] are trying, no doubt about it, and there are
some people trying to encourage them, but we have controlled the
situation, she said.
But Hasina said closer international cooperation was necessary to stop the
spread of radical ideas from the west to Bangladesh: Certainly we want
cooperation from all other countries so that they should be very careful that
no illegal money or arms or terrorists should take any chance to create any
problem to any other country.
While JEI is regarded by Britain and the US as a moderate Islamist political
party, others strongly disagree.
Shahriar Kabir, a Dhaka journalist and author, described Jamaat as the
godfather of all terrorism and said it posed an existentialist threat to
Bangladeshs secular tradition.

If the BNP [the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist party that is allied to JEI]
wins the next election, Bangladesh will become Islamicised, Kabir said.
Isis and al-Qaida are targeting Bangladesh. Jihadis are coming here from
abroad, some from the UK. And money for the Islamists is coming from
Islamic NGOs and individuals in Britain and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
We are fighting to maintain a secular society. But we are losing ground. If
we lose we will become a centre of global jihadi terrorism, Kabir said.
Jamaat-e-Islamis connection to the Bangladeshi community in east London
and other British cities is well-established. On its website, the East London
mosque, a focal point for the community, states it is not affiliated to or
controlled by JEI although it says it has hosted JEI speakers in the past.
One such speaker was the former leading Jamaat MP, Delwar Hossain
Sayeedi, who was tried and sentenced to death in 2013 by a special war
crimes tribunal set up by the Awami League government, which appears to
view most JEI leaders as terrorists.
According to the Jewish-Muslim interfaith organisation, StandForPeace, the
East London mosque and the Islamic Forum of Europe are both leading
Jamaat organisers in Britain. Both institutions heavily promote the writings
of Syed Maududi, the founder of Jamaat Islamism, whose book, Let Us Be
Muslims, tells followers: You must strive to change the wrong basis of
government, and seize all powers to rule.
The British connection in the Bangladesh blogger murder cases is only one
of several such links. Last year, Bangladeshi police arrested Samiun
Rahman, a British man of Bangladeshi origin, on suspicion of recruiting for
Isis in Dhaka and the north-eastern city of Sylhet.

Samiun Rahman, centre, a British man of Bangladeshi origin, was arrested on suspicion of recruiting for Isis in
Dhaka and the eastern city of Sylhet in 2014. Photograph: Reaz Sumon/Demotix/Corbis

In addition, several British Bangladeshis have reportedly been killed in Syria

while fighting for Isis or other Islamist groups. In another well-publicised
case,Mashudur Choudhury, from Portsmouth, was convicted of terror
crimes linked to Syria last year. He belonged a group calling itself the
Britani Bangladesh Bad Boys. The other four members of the group have
since been killed.
Islamist organisations involved in, or benefiting from, Bangladeshs
fundamentalist revival include the JMB terror group, which is notorious for
exploding 500 bombs in a single day in 2005.
JMB cells are reported to be increasingly active again. In July police said
they had arrested eight JMB militants, including the groups leader. They
were accused of plotting to kill important personalities of the state and
free their leaders from jail. Last October Indian security officials said they
had uncovered a JMB plot to assassinate Hasina, after two members of the
group were killed in an explosion while making bombs in the state of West
Bengal, which borders Bangladesh.

The ex-army intelligence specialist said Bangladeshi Islamists also have

links to AQIS, which is active in India, Pakistan and Myanmar, and to the
anti-India, Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of God).
LET was responsible for the 2001 terrorist attacks on the Indian parliament
and the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Its aim is to establish a caliphate, or Islamic
state, in southern Asia. Bangladeshi cities said to be particularly supportive
of fundamentalist ideas include Satkhira and Khulna in the south-west and
Sylhet.
The brains behind the Islamist revival in Bangladesh is Hizb ut-Tahrir, the
non-violent, pan-Islamist political organisation that also operates in Britain
and the US among other countries, the intelligence specialist said.
Hizb is a hearts and minds organisation, the specialist said. It runs a very
savvy information and communications operation. It is extremely active in
Bangladesh, one reason for its success being Hasinas creation of a political
vacuum.
Hizb want a caliphate. They want to be a province or a state of Isis. Hizb
activists are middle class or upper middle class, they are university
educated, they have a growing presence in Britain and the US, and they
have a large female following, all wearing headscarves. In Bangladesh, they
recruit the foot-soldiers.
A veteran Dhaka politician offered a more personal perspective. His family
recently experienced the fundamentalist shift in Bangladeshi society at first
hand, he said.
My nephew came back from college in the US. Hes having a great
education, something I never had. So whats the first thing he says? He
says to me: Why dont you grow a beard?
Downing Street acknowledged the UK needed to do more to tackle
extremism but pointed to the number of foreign Isis fighters from other
countries.
David Camerons official spokeswoman said: The PM set out his thinking

in a big speech before the summer. He does believe the government needs
to be working with communities in a cross-country effort.
Alongside that, in many of the bilaterals that he has had with other leaders
he also talks to them about what more we can do to work together to look
at the best ways to address radicalisation and extremism. When he was in
south-east Asia that was one of the things he talked to them about.
Asked whether there was concern about Britain being a hotbed of
radicalisation that is influencing other countries, she said: I dont think I
have seen particular evidence pointing to that. Clearly we have concerns
about British foreign fighters going to fight for Isis.
But when you look at the number of foreign fighters Isil are recruiting it
illustrates the fact that many countries are facing this problem whether it is
other European countries or Asian countries too.
Posted by Thavam