Bangladesh: A New Hub for Terrorism?

Remember Bangladesh? First immortalized when George Harrison sang of it's misery and starvation in the early '70s. Bangladesh had just broken free from Pakistani rule with the help of the Indian army. During the 70's the government was beset by multiple coups and attempts at restructuring. With India's support it emerged as a democracy. But like India, it's economic disparity is extremely broad, with the large majority of the population very poor.

Bangladesh has recently had considerable controversy about the upcoming national elections forcing a postponement and a new caretaker government.
WaPo recently questioned whether Bangladesh could become a haven for terrorists.

While the United States dithers, a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement linked to al-Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence agencies is steadily converting the strategically located nation of Bangladesh into a new regional hub for terrorist operations that reach into India and Southeast Asia.


With 147 million people, largely Muslim Bangladesh has substantial Hindu and Christian minorities and is nominally a secular democracy. But the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) struck a Faustian bargain with the fundamentalist party Jamaat-e-Islami five years ago in order to win power.


In return for the votes in Parliament needed to form a coalition government, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has looked the other way as the Jamaat has systematically filled sensitive civil service, police, intelligence and military posts with its sympathizers, who have in turn looked the other way as Jamaat-sponsored guerrilla squads patterned after the Taliban have operated with increasing impunity in many rural and urban areas.

PINR has a different view. Despite the election controversy, somethings have been going well. All bets are off when global warming raises the ocean and displaces 100 million of the population.

The B.N.P.-led coalition claims to have performed well during its tenure, although its assertions have been contested by many. On October 27, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, in a speech delivered on the last day of her government's tenure, outlined the economic progress achieved by the country under her leadership. She said that the coalition government assumed power with a foreign exchange reserve of US$1 billion, but had maintained a level of over $3 billion for the last five years. She disclosed that remittance inflows had increased to $4.2 billion in 2005, rising from $1.88 billion in 2002. She also stated that per capita income had risen to $482 and per capita G.D.P. increased to $456 in 2005-06. The country's trade deficit with India has narrowed by 14 percent in the last financial year with increased exports and declining imports.


Similarly, Bangladesh, which appeared to be rapidly consolidating its position as a potential refuge for Islamist extremist and terrorism in the early years after the September 11 attacks, has shown definite signs of recovery. The high point of Islamist extremism in Bangladesh was reached with the August 14, 2005 countrywide explosions, and further demonstrated through a series of attacks targeting judicial institutions in the country between October and December 2005. The government, however, not only managed to arrest the entire top brass of the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (J.M.B.), but also secured the final judicial verdict on their fate. On November 28, 2006, the Supreme Court rejected the petitions of six militant leaders and cadres of the J.M.B. seeking permission to appeal against a High Court judgment upholding the death sentences awarded to them by a trial court. Critics, however, allege that the regime has neither bothered to address the fundamentals that led to the growth of militancy, nor has it targeted the thriving terrorist network and their international supporters.