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10 suspected militants arrested in Bangladesh amid crackdown
[Iran Press TV] Police in Bangladesh have made 10 fresh arrests as a crackdown on members of an outlawed turban group widens across the country.Security officials said on Monday that six young men, aged between 19 and 23, had been tossed in the calaboose Please don't kill me! overnight in a raid on their hideouts in the capital Dhaka. Police counter-terrorism chief Monirul Islam said the six had been plotting to kill a top Islamic scholar during the current holy month of Ramadan. He said the outspoken holy man, whose name was not disclosed, was known for his criticism of Takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who must be killed... ideologies. Islam said the suspected Death Eaters had been closely watching the scholar’s house and the plan to kill him was going ahead. He added that all those arrested were members of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh The JMB is said to be the youth front of Al Mujahideen, the parent organization that began working toward establishing Bangladesh as an Islamic state in the mid 1990s which remains obscure even today. Other organizations, such as Jama'atul Jihad, JMB, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), Hizbut Tawhid, Tawhidi Janata, Islami Jubo Shangha, Islami Shangha, Al Falah A'am Unnayan Shanstha and Shahadat-e al Hiqma are believed to be part of the Al Mujahideen network. The JMB at its peak was reported to contain at least 100,000 members, and an alleged 2,000-man suicide brigade, few of whom actually exploded. JMB allegedly received financial assistance from individual donors in Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Libya. Reports have claimed that funding of JMB by international NGOs like Kuwait based Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage (RIHS) and Doulatul Kuwait, Saudi Arabia based Al Haramaine Islamic Institute and Rabita Al Alam Al Islami, Qatar Charitable Society and UAE-based Al Fuzaira and Khairul Ansar Al Khairia. The top leadership of JMB was captured in 2005 and hung in 2007, which pretty much shot their bolt. (JMB), a banned group which is routinely blamed by the government for attacks on bloggers, publishers, writers, members of minority groups and foreigners. Later reports said the suspects would be kept in jug for interrogation as police received authorization from a judge in Dhaka. Police also carried out a raid on a turban hideout in a northwestern district of Dhaka on Monday. Three people were arrested in the raid while police seized explosives and guns. Also a writer, whose works are believed to have inspired young people to join turban groups, was arrested earlier in the day. Bangladesh insists that the JMB was behind a deadly siege on a restaurant in Dhaka's diplomatic zone last July. Twenty people, including 17 foreigners, were killed in the attack claimed by the ISIS terrorist group. The Takfiri group, which is mainly operating in the Middle East, has vowed to carry out other attacks in Bangladesh. Some 60 suspected Death Eaters have been killed across Bangladesh in the crackdown launched since the hostage-taking in the restaurant. The government has vowed to continue the crackdown until it crushes militancy in the South Asian country. Posted by: Fred 2017-06-13 |
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