 "Bomb culture" threatens Bangladesh as militants linked to al Qaeda spread terror across the nation, especially in the holy town of Sylhet, the 32,784th holiest site in all of Islam, a media report said today. Sylhet was terrorised last year by dozens of death threats and seven grenade blasts that killed five and injured more than 100. Three movie theatres have been bombed and Sylhet's holiest shrine, the tomb of Hazrat Shah Jalal, a Seventh Century Sufi saint, was hit twice by grenade attacks. The attacks, the 'Washington Times' noted, mirror a pattern of unchecked violence across Bangladesh, raising concern that religious radicals nurtured by Islamic charities linked to al Qaeda and protected by the government are undermining long-held traditions of tolerance.
| Isn't it a primary responsibility of an islamic charity to undermine long-held traditions of tolerance? I'm sure it's in the Quran somewhere. |
"If there is a country in the world today in danger of completely beaking down, it is Bangladesh," said Gowher Rizvi, a Bangladeshi who heads the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University. "This bomb culture is completely new to Sylhet," said Mayor Badaruddin Kamran, who was the target of a blast in August that killed a close friend.
| As long as you keep importing that philosophy from Soddy Arabia and Pakland you're gonna have it. So the solution is...? |
The paper quoted a Bangladeshi professor Farjana Siddika, 34, who opened her office mail and found she was marked for death. Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's parliamentary affairs adviser, discounted talk of rising extremism.
The US has named at least two major supporters of madrassas in Bangladesh - the Pakistan-based Rabita Trust and the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, which Saudi Arabia dissolved last year--as conduits for al Qaeda. |