According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, an Australian-based organization that studies terrorism in its report dated April 10, 2023 said Bangladesh ranks much better than Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and even the United States and the United Kingdom in the Global Terrorism Index as the country has been vigorously continuing offensives against terrorism, violent extremism and Islamist militancy. According to the data from the Institute for Economics and Peace, Bangladesh was ranked 40th in 2022, 43rd in 2023, and 22nd in 2016. In other words, since 2016 onwards, Bangladesh has continuously improved its position in its battle against terrorism.
Meanwhile, according to the World Economic League Table, Bangladesh will be the 25th largest economy in the world in 2035, by outshining Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. But such tremendous achievements of the country may soon start getting eclipsed as pro-Islamist Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and pro-jihadist Jamaat-e-Islami are jointly hatching conspiracy to return to power with the direct support of the Biden administration.
On April 22, 2023, Bangladesh Prime Minister and Awami League President Sheikh Hasina urged the people of the country to give her party another chance in the next general election to help establish Bangladesh into a developing nation. She also said, if anti-liberation forces and corrupt elements come to power again, they will destroy all the achievements of the last 13 years.
While calling upon people to vote Awami League again in power during the next general elections and asking them to remain alert against anti-liberation forces and corrupt elements come to power again, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina needs to know – currently there is far bigger conspiracy against Bangladesh jointly by pro-Islamist Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ideological cohort Jamaat-e-Islami as this vicious nexus is spending millions of dollars towards lobbyist activities in the United States and other Western countries, including Britain with the ulterior agenda of returning to power through undemocratic paths. Because of such frantic bids of BNP and Jamaat, countries like the US, particularly the Biden administration is showing clear signs of bias towards them, where Washington too is trying to reinstate Jamaat-e-Islami and BNP into power under the garb of Biden administration’s ‘democratism’ policy which is aimed at cow-towing targeted foreign nations through its so-called approach for better democracy, which according to many analysts is aimed at establishing monopoly influence of the United States with the ulterior motive of extracting multiple strategic and financial benefits by planting its marionette regime.
Bangladesh under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina
According to some analysts, the Biden administration has already wrapped-up its war on terror or at least priorities in combating terrorism and Islamist militancy. In contrast, Bangladesh, under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina through the country’s law enforcement agencies, especially the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has been making tireless efforts in eliminating violent extremism, terrorism and Islamist militancy. Before Sheikh Hasina came to power in 2009, foreign media was seeing the Bangladesh being a cocoon of terror, as then Islamist and jihadist coalition government was directly patronizing religious extremism and militancy, while some analysts saw Bangladesh as a “fertile ground for Al Qaeda and Islamic State”, where Animesh Roul wrote: “Bangladesh, the fourth-largest Muslim majority country in the world, has been in the limelight of late because of growing political and religious violence, including increasingly frequent targeted killings of secularists by radical Islamists. Over the last three years the country has become increasingly polarized between moderate and secularist forces on one side and Islamists on the other, which has resulted in growing radicalization and increasingly energized and strengthened local radical networks. While local dynamics explain much of the rise of violence, this article will document how both al-Qa’ida and the Islamic State are increasingly eyeing Bangladesh for expansion and taking advantage of local radical networks to expand their presence and support base in the country”.
He further wrote:
“The conducive atmosphere of Bangladesh for Islamist militancy has been broadly created by two historical factors: the country’s political patronage of Islamism that nourished over a dozen extremist groups over the decades, and the rise and consolidation of the Deobandi-oriented JeI [Jamaat-e-Islami] organization and its clamor for sharia-based governance in Bangladesh.
“Ever since Bangladesh emerged as a nominally secularist state in 1971 after a war against Pakistan, the country has witnessed a sporadic, internal politico-religious tug-of-war. Even though the constitution emphasizes secularism as one of its four state principles and has banned the use of religion in politics, the clamor for a sharia-based Islamic state, ostensibly propounded by the JeI, has powerful backers in the country even today. The JeI has strong connections with a myriad of militant groups that have mushroomed throughout the country in recent decades under its patronage. These groups look at JeI as their spiritual and ideological fountainhead.
“Two groups have been responsible for a significant share of the violence in Bangladesh. One of them, HuJI-B, was secretly founded in the late 1980s by the members of the Bangladeshi volunteer mujahideen who took part in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, where it developed strong operational connections with Al-Qa`ida and Pakistani intelligence agencies. It has focused its attacks on the political leaders of the Awami League party (the secularist party that currently governs Bangladesh) as well as cultural events. Two particularly devastating attacks were a grenade attack on an Awami League rally in August 2004 that killed 24 and a bombing in Ramna Batamul in Dhaka during Bengali new year celebrations in April 2001 that killed 10”.
“The International Crisis Group in its report said, “Two groups, Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh and Ansarul Islam [Ansar Al Islam], dominate Bangladesh’s jihadist landscape today. Attacks since 2013 have targeted secular activists, intellectuals and foreigners, as well as religious and sectarian minorities”.
At one stage it was anticipated by a large number of counterterrorism experts in the world that Bangladesh slipping into the grips of Islamists and jihadists would pose a serious threat to the region and the world. Due to such an alarming scenario, most of the Western nations, including the United States were regularly asking Bangladesh authorities to take measures in checking the rise of radical Islam, religious extremism and militancy.
This was a herculean task for Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to wage and continue effective war on terror particularly Islamist jihad in a Muslim-majority country as jihadism is not seen as crime by a larger proportion of the population, especially because of heavy influence of Deobandi clerics, Tablighi Jamaat and Islamist forces.
World faces risk posed by terrorism and militancy
Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been a wide and extremely alarming spread of terrorism and Islamist militancy throughout the world. Taking advantage of the advancement of technology and growing influence of social media, terrorists and jihadists are using it as the most effective method of radicalization and spread of jihadism within Muslims – mainly the younger generation. Despite such a worrisome situation, surprisingly the Biden administration has not only abandoned America’s war on terror, it also is now joining hands with Islamist and jihadist forces in a number of countries, including Bangladesh, which surely is a matter of grave concern.
It may be mentioned here that Bangladesh, a country with almost 180 million population, where the majority of the people are Muslims may pose a serious threat to the regional and global security once the country slips into the grips of Islamists and jihadists. Although Washington is not unaware of this issue, US President Joe Biden’s desperation of destabilizing a country like Bangladesh thus unseating a secularist, anti-terror and anti-militancy government deserves immediate attention of the international community, particularly Bangladesh’s biggest neighbor India. To my understanding, the US administration is playing pro-Islamist deadly card in Bangladesh with a long-term plot of spreading seeds of terrorism and militancy deep inside India and finally causing the disintegration of the country with emergence of separatist activities and insurgencies.
