 | This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information.(September 2024) |
Bangladesh has experienced terrorism in the past conducted by a number of different organisations. [6] [7] In the past, both ISIL and other terrorist organisations had claimed to be active in the country. However, the Bangladeshi government believes that they mainly operated through local affiliates, before being neutralised by security forces.
The first Bangladeshi Islamist factions emerged in 1989, when a network of 30 different factions was established and expanded in the following years. The main goal of most Islamist groups in Bangladesh is to create a separate Islamic state, or to govern Bangladesh according to Sharia law. Islamist groups have conducted operations against the ruling party's corruptions in the country. Islamic groups are alleged to be terrorists for political interests. [8] [ self-published source? ]
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| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2024) |
Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, is an Islamist extremist group operating in and around northwestern Bangladesh. The Government of Bangladesh has banned the JMJB, classifying it as a terrorist organization. It is described by Bangladeshi police as an offshoot of the related Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh outfit.
Rapid Action Battalion is an anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit of the Bangladesh Police. This elite force consists of members of the Bangladesh Army, Navy, Air Force, Police, Border Guard, and the Bangladesh Ansar. It was formed on 26 March 2004 as RAT, and commenced operations on 14 April 2004.
Bangladesh Islami Chhatrashibir is a Islamist student organization based in Bangladesh. It was established on 6 February 1977. The organisation is generally understood to be the student wing of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, and several of the leaders of the student organisation have gone on to become notable leaders within Jamaat.
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen is a terrorist organisation operating in Bangladesh. It is listed as a terror group by Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, The United Kingdom and Australia. It was founded in April 1998 in Palampur in Dhaka Division by Abdur Rahman and gained public prominence in 2001 when bombs and documents detailing the activities of the organisation were discovered in Parbatipur in Dinajpur district. The organisation was officially declared a terrorist organisation and banned by the government of Bangladesh in February 2005 after attacks on NGOs. But it struck back in mid-August when it detonated 500 small bombs at 300 locations throughout Bangladesh. The group re-organised and has committed several public murders in 2016 in northern Bangladesh as part of a wave of attacks on secularists.
The 21 August 2004 Dhaka grenade attack took place at an anti-terrorism rally organised by Awami League on Bangabandhu Avenue on 21 August 2004. The attack left 24 dead and more than 500 injured. The attack was carried out at 5:22 pm after Sheikh Hasina, the leader of opposition had finished addressing a crowd of 20,000 people from the back of a truck. Hasina also sustained some injuries in the attack. The involvement of BNP-Jamaat led government is still debated.
The Bangladesh Awami Jubo League commonly known as the Jubo League, is the first youth organization of Bangladesh founded by Sheikh Fazlul Haque Mani. It is the youth wing of Bangladesh Awami League. Jubo league's current chairman is Sheikh Fazle Shams Parash, General Secretary is Md Mainul Hossain Khan Nikhil.
Bangladesh Jatiotabadi Chatra Dal, also known as JCD, is the affiliate student wing of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Many of the top BNP leaders and policy-makers today were once closely associated with JCD and developed as student leaders.
The Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), also known as Ansar-al Islam Bangladesh/Ansar Bangla is an Islamic organization in Bangladesh, implicated in crimes including some brutal attacks and murders of atheist bloggers from 2013 to 2015 and a bank heist in April 2015. The gang was outlawed days after the bank robbery by the Ministry of Home Affairs on 25 May 2015. The group has been claimed by police to be linked to Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami party in Bangladesh.
Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh is a far-right conservative-islamic advocacy group consisted mostly of hard-line religious teachers and students. The group is mainly based on qawmi madrasas in Bangladesh. In 2013, they submitted a 13-point charter to the Government of Bangladesh, which included the demand for the enactment of a blasphemy law.
Attacks by Islamist extremists in Bangladesh took place during a period of turbulence in Bangladesh between 2013 and 2016 when a number of secularist and atheist writers, bloggers, and publishers in Bangladesh; foreigners; homosexuals; and religious minorities such as Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Ahmadis who were seen as having offended Islam and Muhammad were attacked in retaliation, with many killed by Muslim extremists. By 2 July 2016, a total of 48 people, including 20 foreign nationals, had been killed in such attacks. These attacks were largely blamed on extremist groups such as Ansarullah Bangla Team and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The Bangladeshi government was criticized for its response to the attacks, which included charging and jailing some of the secularist bloggers for allegedly defaming some religious groups; or hurting the religious sentiments of different religious groups; or urging the bloggers to flee overseas. This strategy was seen by some as pandering to hard line elements within Bangladesh's Muslim majority population. About 89% of the population in Bangladesh is Sunni Muslim. The government's eventual crackdown in June 2016 was also criticized for its heavy-handedness, as more than 11,000 people were arrested in a little more than a week.
On the night of 1 July 2016, at 21:20 local time, five militants took hostages and opened fire on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan Thana. The assailants entered the bakery with crude bombs, machetes, pistols, and took several dozen hostages. In the immediate response, while Dhaka Metropolitan Police tried to regain control of the bakery, two police officers were shot dead by the assailants.
Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, known by his kunya Abu Dujanah al-Bengali, was a Bangladeshi-Canadian Islamist militant that was the head of military and covert operations of the Islamic State's Bengal Province. For a while, he was alleged to be the emir of the Islamic State's Bengal Province, Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif. He was the alleged mastermind of the July 2016 Dhaka attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery, which resulted in 29 deaths. He was killed in a raid on an IS safehouse in Dhaka by Bangladeshi forces on 27 August 2016.
Mufti Abdul Hannan was a Bangladeshi terrorist and the chief of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh. He was sentenced to death by hanging for multiple crimes and executed on 12 April 2017.
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh, [transl. Jihad movement of Islam of Bangladesh] is the Bangladeshi branch of the terrorist group Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI). It is banned in Bangladesh and is a Proscribed Organisation in the United Kingdom under the Terrorism Act 2000.
The 2017 Dhaka RAB Camp suicide bombing was an attempted suicide attack in the under construction compound of the elite Rapid Action Battalion in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 17 March 2017. The suicide attempt failed to cause any mass casualties, injuries or deaths. Only the lone suicide bomber died.
The 2017 South Surma Upazila bombings was a combined police and army raid of a suspected militant hideout in South Surma Upazila, Sylhet, Bangladesh on 25 March 2017. During the raid, the militants targeted the Bangladesh Armed Forces who were surrounding the militant occupied compound in Sylhet. There were two suicide bombings which killed four civilians and two police officers and wounded more than 40, some critically. An army lieutenant colonel later died from his injuries. Bombs exploded and gunfire was reported when the military launched Operation Twilight to clear the militant hideout. ISIL claimed responsibility however, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal denied the claims of ISIL and blamed the local Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh for the attacks. Finally the Bangladesh Army neutralised four militants at the suspected hideout.
Police Bureau of Investigation is a specialized unit of the Bangladesh Police that performs a criminal investigation and digital forensic service by the order of honorable court, police headquarters and the request of other police units. They investigate homicides, crime against property, sexual assaults, arson, cyber crime, and other crimes. Additional Inspector General Md Toufiq Mahbub Chowdhury is the chief of the PBI.
Islamic State – Bengal Province is an administrative division of the Islamic State, a Salafi jihadist militant group and former unrecognised Quasi-state. The group was announced by ISIL as its province in 2016. The first emir of Wilayat al-Bengal, Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, is believed to be Mohammad Saifullah Ozaki a Bangladeshi Japanese economist who went to Syria in 2015 and joined IS. A Hindu convert to Islam, he reportedly led the 2016 Dhaka attack. He was detained in Iraq in 2019 and Abu Muhammed al-Bengali was announced as the new emir of the province.
Allah'r Dal is an Islamist terrorist organisation operating in Bangladesh. The group also operates under the name Allah'r Sarkar. Bangladesh Enterprise Institute in their 2007–2008 Trends in Militancy in Bangladesh report referred to the group as an offshoot of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh. According to the report the group is most active in Kushtia District, Meherpur District, and Chuadanga District.
Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF), also known as Bom Party or Bawm Party, is a banned left-wing ethno-nationalist armed militant political organization in Bangladesh based in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Established by Nathan Bom in 2008, KNF aims to establish a separate autonomous or independent state for Bawm, Pangkhua, Lushai, Khumi, Mru & Khiang peoples with nine subdistricts (upazilas) of Rangamati and Bandarban districts. The Front has an armed wing called Kuki-Chin National Army. According to Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies, Kuki-Chin National Front has received weapons from the Kachin State in Myanmar, and also has ties with Karen rebels.
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