Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05DHAKA1851
2005-04-20 11:24:00
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
Embassy Dhaka
Cable title:  

BDG INTEL BRIEFING ON ISLAMIST MILITANTS

Tags:  PTER KISL PGOV PREL BG 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DHAKA 001851 

SIPDIS

NOFORN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/20/2015
TAGS: PTER KISL PGOV PREL BG BG
SUBJECT: BDG INTEL BRIEFING ON ISLAMIST MILITANTS

REF: DHAKA 0815

Classified By: P/E Counselor D.C. McCullough, reason para 1.4 b, d.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DHAKA 001851

SIPDIS

NOFORN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/20/2015
TAGS: PTER KISL PGOV PREL BG BG
SUBJECT: BDG INTEL BRIEFING ON ISLAMIST MILITANTS

REF: DHAKA 0815

Classified By: P/E Counselor D.C. McCullough, reason para 1.4 b, d.


1. (C/NF) On April 18, a three-man team headed by Brigadier
Asif Chowdhury, Foreign Intelligence Bureau director of the
military Director General Forces Intelligence (DGFI),
presented a 30-minute Power Point briefing at the Embassy to
Ambassador, P/E counselor, DATT, and RAO on the investigation
of detained Islamist militant leader Assadullah al-Ghalib,
director of the Arab Department at Rajshahi University, and
two banned Islamist organizations (reftel). A 20-minute
q-and-a session followed.


2. (C/NF) The DGFI officers made the following points:

A) The Targets: Ghalib leads one of three factions, each with
its own youth group, professing adherence to the Islamic
orthodox Ahle Hadith sect. His Ahle Hadith Andolan
Bangladesh (AHAB) rejects "un-Islamic" practices like
cultural events and programs aimed at empowering rural women.
AHAB spawned the two groups banned by the BDG on February
23: the Jamaaat Mujahidin Bangladesh (JMB),which was created
in 2002 as AHAB's secret military wing to fight anti-Islamic
elements in general, and the Jagroto Muslim Janata Bangladesh
(JMJB),which arose in April 2004 to counter
communist/leftist influence and criminality in northwestern
Bangladesh. The latter group was led operationally by
Siddiqar Rahman, more infamously known as Bangla Bhai, and
spiritually by Abdur Rahman. Ghalib is the supreme spiritual
leader of JMB and JMJB according to detainees from both
groups. The ranks of JMB and JMJB are drawn almost
exclusively from the Bangladeshi Ahle Hadith community, which
DGFI estimates is as small as 50,000 persons. (Note: Other
estimates are as high as two million.)

B) Funding: AHAB, JMB, and JMJB receive funds from extortion,
donations, periodical subscriptions, the sale of cow hides
during Id festivities, and alms. A Kuwait-based NGO, the
Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS),provided funding
via "religion attaches" at the Kuwaiti and Saudi embassies in
Dhaka to about 200 imams at Ahle Hadith mosques and

madrassah. (Note: According to MFA's Diplomatic List, the
Saudi Embassy has a one-person "religion attache" office.
There is no comparable listing for the Kuwait embassy.)

C) Ghalib's Travels: Based on Ghalib's laptop, personal
records, statements, and passports (except for the last one,
which he claims he lost),between 1989-1999 he traveled for
conferences or other meetings to India (Bihar),Kuwait,
Nepal, Bahrain, and Pakistan. In Kuwait, he met with a
Salaafist government minister named Jasem al-Aum, who owns a
company that puts out Salaafist publications. Despite this
regular travel abroad, Galib's interests and focus were
primarily domestic.

D) Fugitive Prizes: DGFI is very confident that Bangla Bhai
and Abdur Rahman will be arrested very soon as the result of
its monitoring of telephones, surveillance of key people and
places, the activation of local police and paramilitary
auxiliaries, and the posting of large rewards (the taka
equivalent of 835 dollars for Rahman and 1670 dollars for
Bangla Bhai). Rahman is "one hundred times" more important
than Bangla Bhai because he inspires extremists to action
while Bangla Bhai is just a media-enhanced field commander.
Bangla Bhai may have fled to India.

E) Next Steps: After capturing Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai,
the focus will shift to the operational commanders of JMB and
JMJB, and then the arrest of JMB/JMJB activists. There is no
timeframe since Rahman and Bangla Bhai have yet to be caught.
Because DGFI has been monitoring these two groups for up to
one year, it already has a list of activists. However,
arresting them "pre-emptively" could be politically
problematic since the case against their superiors has yet to
be clearly established. When there is (unspecified)
political pressure on the investigation, DGFI finds another
way to proceed.

F) Positive Impact: Since DGFI arrested Ghalib and four top
commanders on February 23, there has been a big drop in
subversive activity across Bangladesh. The BDG is committed
to building a strong legal case against Ghalib and the others
to ensure long-term convictions. "We want him at least 14
years to let this movement die down." Current laws, dating
from colonial times, focus on anti-state actions, need to be
updated to recognize terrorism and ideologically-driven
violence. There are three cases against Ghalib for allegedly
instigating IED attacks. However, he insists to
interrogators that he called only for rhetorical jihad, not
actual violence, and this distinction is enough to hamper
prosecution without additional evidence.

G) Releases: "Some" detainees have been released because
police, in response to the Home Ministry's "tough" message to
crack down on extremists, arrested them simply because they
were found at several madrassahs. "We stopped it the next
day." (Note: DGFI claimed not to have total arrest or
release numbers. Local media in late February reported about
two dozen arrests; in early April, media reports conflicted
on whether any of the detainees had been released.)

H) Voters: At the 2001 general election, about 60 percent of
AHAB members voted for BNP and 40 percent voted for AL.
Jamaat Islami got zero. (Note: Others observers believe that
JI does very well with Ahle Hadith voters, a potential
embarrassment for the BDG in this context since JI is part of
the government.)

I) Arsenal: No weapons have been recovered, only locally-made
explosive powder used for IEDs.

J) RIHS: At DGFI direction, the BDG's NGO Affairs Bureau has
frozen RIHS's access to foreign funds and is investigating
how prior foreign funds were spent to see if a case can be
built to ban RIHS. (On April 20, local media reported that
Dipu Sarwar, a journalist who wrote a series of articles on
RIHS, received an anonymous phone call saying he would be
killed if his articles led to a halt of the NGOs activities.)



3. (C/NF) Comment: One month ago, Mission elements received
virtually the same briefing, including the predictions of
Bangla Bhai's and Rahman's imminent capture. The DGFI sought
to convince that the BDG is committed to pursuing this
"unprecedented operation" against Ghalib and the extremists,
that JMB/JMJB are relatively unsophisticated in terms of
weapons and external contacts, that the DGFI is fully mindful
of human rights, and that Bangladeshis are overwhelmingly
moderate people.
THOMAS