JMB TERRORIST INVESTIGATION MARCHES ON--UP TO A

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 DHAKA 002573

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/30/2016
TAGS: PTER KISL PGOV PHUM BG
SUBJECT: JMB TERRORIST INVESTIGATION MARCHES ON--UP TO A
POINT

REF: 4/20/06 MCCULLOUGH-GASTRIGHT E-MAIL (NOTAL)

Classified By: A/DCM D.C. McCullough, reason para 1.5 b, d.


1. (S) Summary. The BDG's pursuit of JMB crossed a huge
threshold in April with the capture of the last two members
of JMB's senior leadership body. Overall, some 693 alleged
JMB activists have been arrested, 141 criminal cases have
been filed, and 31 defendants have been convicted and
sentenced, including 22 to death. DGFI hopes to stand up its
new CT bureau by June, and draft AML and CT legislation is
lurching forward. The Rapid Action Battalion emerged as the
country's lead CT action unit. The BDG acknowledged that
Bangla Bhai was not, as the Home Minister once famously
claimed, a media fabrication. While the BDG's scorecard is
impressive on the law enforcement side, it continues to deny
that JMB was in any way motivated by Islamist ideology, and
refuses to deal with widespread allegations that four senior
BNP leaders godfathered the JMB "Frankenstein." The JMB's
back really does look broken, at least until after the
January 2007 election, but the conditions that spawned
Bangladesh's first overt Islamist terrorist campaign have not
materially changed. There is a strong possibility that the
BDG will discover that the next terrorist menace in
Bangladesh, either a reconstituted JMB or a new group, will
be much harder to break. End Summary.

Bangladesh Post-August 17
--------------


2. (C) The approximately 459 coordinated small bomb blasts
that rattled Bangladesh on August 17 initiated an interesting
sequence of events:

-- About two hundred lower-level JMB activists, including
some bombers, were soon rounded up. After first denying that
Jamaat ul-Mujahidin Bangladesh (JMB) had the capability to
conduct a nationwide action, the BDG tagged JMB,
theoretically banned in February 2005 for attacks on
Bangladeshi NGOs, for organizing and conducting the blasts.
Publicly and privately, BDG officials postulated that India
and the opposition Awami League were behind JMB. To dilute
the Islamist identity of JMB, one intelligence agency put out
the incredible story that JMB was acting in concert with a
faction of its long-time nemesis, the East Bengal Communist
Party (PBCB).

-- On October 1, RAB arrested in Dhaka the fugitive leader of
Harakat ul-Jihad Bangladesh (HUJIB),Mufti Hanan, who
sensationally told reporters he had been protected by
Commerce Minister Chowdhury and other BNP leaders.

-- After a long lull, on October 3 JMB struck again, this
time fatally, with bomb attacks on three court houses in the
Chittagong division that killed two persons and injured 38.

-- In November, JMB attacks became bolder and more
sophisticated to overcome police counter-measures. At least
55 "JMB" threats -- some obviously hoaxes but others
chillingly authentic -- bombarded judges, lawyers, local
government officials, police officers, Law Minister Ahmed,
reporters, professors, universities, schools, and Bangladeshi
NGOs.

-- On November 14, Bangladesh's apparently first suicide
bomber killed two judges. Panic spread in many parts of
Bangladesh over the randomness of JMB violence and the BDG's
inability to stop it.

-- On November 20, police arrested Abdur Rahman's son-in-law,
the first member of JMB's seven-man leadership council.
Arrests of mid-level leaders intensified.

-- On December 5, an independent Hindu candidate easily beat
the Jamaat Islami (JI) candidate in a parliamentary
by-election in the traditional JI bastion of Dinajpur.
Observers attributed his shock win to voter anger over JI's
perceived links to JMB.


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-- On December 8, JMB's deadliest suicide attack killed six
persons and injured 46 in Netrokona, the home constituency of
Home Minister of State Babar. Until press reporting proved
he was an innocent bystander, BDG officials described one of
the fatalities as JMB's first Hindu suicide attacker --
another shameless attempt to de-Islamicize JMB.

-- On March 2, JMB supremo Abdur Rahman surrendered after a
long siege at a home in Sylhet. Four days later, Bangla Bhai
was slightly wounded as he was taken into custody.

-- On March 10, local media reported that JMB detainees had
confessed to high-profile attacks in recent years on
prominent intellectuals, cultural festivals, and in 2002 the
four cinemas in Mymensingh, where 27 persons were killed.

-- On April 26, RAB captured the last two remaining members
at large of the JMB leadership council.

The BDG Approach
--------------


3. (C) BDG determination to hunt down JMB leaders did not
materialize until early November, when domestic political
pressure, driven by escalating JMB attacks, demonstrated that
the BDG's normal strategy for dealing with politically
sensational attacks -- denial and procrastination -- was
failing. Mounting pressure from Washington and other foreign
capitals, plus public grumbling from several BNP MPs about
their party's ties to JI, were other factors. The BDG
organized civil society, including virtually every strand of
organized Islam, to condemn JMB's actions as un-Islamic. The
BDG continued to downplay the role of Islam, even a
perversion of Islam, as a factor in JMB's actions because it
feared such a linkage would intensify suspicion about BNP's
politically expedient alliance with JI and IOJ. The BDG
argued that because terrorism and suicide attacks are
un-Islamic, JMB's agenda and motivation must also have no
relation to Islam. Only India and the Awami League, the BNP
said, benefited from JMB's campaign of violence. As
evidence, officials like Home Minister of State Babar
implicated a Sheikh Hasina confidant as an associate of Abdur
Rahman; our own assessment of the evidence and conversation
with the confidant did not appear to substantiate this claim.
Babar, NSI DG Haider, and others argued that the bulk of
JMB's bomb-making materials came not coincidentally from
India, and that at least 60 percent of JMB detainees attended
government, not madrassa, schools.


4. (C) The BDG's full-court press (police, RAB, NSI, DGFI) on
JMB produced impressive results. According to police
sources, they have netted over 693 alleged JMB activists
since August 17, over 600 of whom are still in custody.
Police have 96 current investigations and have filed 141
criminal cases. The six trials to date have produced 31
convictions and 22 death sentences, seven life terms, and one
sentence of 15 years.


5. (C) The BDG insists that it is committed to pursuing the
JMB investigation to the end, including those who funded and
patronized the terrorists, but it refuses to address the
widespread view that Bangla Bhai and Abdur Rahman enjoyed BNP
protection and were recruited by four beleaguered BNP leaders
in Rajshahi to wage a vigilante "Islamist" war against PBCB
thugs. Those leaders are: Minister of Telecommunications
(and reputed JI associate) Aminul Haq, Deputy Land Minister
Ruhul Quddus Talukdar Dulu, State Minister for Housing and
Public Works Alamgir Kabir, and MP Nadim Mostapha. PM Zia
has told us that she would punish these or any other leaders
after "proof" was presented of their guilt, her same stance
in dealing with officials accused of corruption. Kabir's
continuing prominence in the party was recently underscored
by his inclusion in the BDG committee which in April
negotiated an end to a popular uprising over power shortages
in Kansat.

What JMB Wrought
--------------


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6. (S) The JMB phenomenon produced several significant
developments:

A) The BDG acknowledged that counter-terrorism is a serious
domestic challenge and not just a foreign policy principle,
even if it mitigates its seriousness by saying it is fueled
by foreign and domestic political antagonists. "We did not
know they were there," PM Zia baldly told TIME magazine in
April. "After the August 17 bomb blasts, we knew. And we
cracked down on them."

B) The controversial Rapid Action Battalion emerged as the
BDG's lead CT strike unit, thereby further enhancing its
local popularity as an aggressive law enforcer. Ironically,
nearly 40 percent of RAB's total "cross-fire" victims have
been members of PBCB, the group Bangla Bhai and Abdur Rahman
were recruited to combat. Even though RAB was at the
forefront in the JMB manhunt, it was never attacked or, to
our knowledge, even threatened by JMB, which some attribute
to the two groups having PBCB as a common enemy. AL
president Hasina has even been compelled to state that her
government would retain the force she has condemned as
"killers" and "brown shirts."

C) Home Minister of State Babar, who in 2004 famously
dismissed Bangla Bhai as a media fabrication, has seen has
political stock shoot up from the basement to the penthouse.
He has grown greatly in his job, and emerged as a strong
supporter of our bilateral law enforcement partnership.

D) After years of resistance, PMO sanctioned the expansion of
DGFI's CT wing to a CT bureau, which has tremendous
implications for DGFI's ability to attract the right people
and resources to be effective. DGFI expects to stand up the
new bureau by June.

E) The Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA) draft was completed
in October but awaits prior Cabinet approval on an
Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). The ATA would criminalize
terrorist financing, and the AMLA would be the executing
legislation for investigation and prosecution. However, it
appears that neither act will be passed in 2006. in part
because of shrinking legislative timeframes before the BNP
hands over to a caretaker regime in September. Elsewhere,
work continues on elevating a de facto Financial Intelligence
Unit (FIU) into a fully fledged group, perhaps in October,
and the relevant ministries have promised to provide
officials with appropriate expertise for a Financial Crimes
Task Force.

F) Allegations of JI links to JMB leaders -- all seven shura
members were reportedly once in JI's student wing -- have put
JI on the defensive and undermined its negotiating leverage
with the BNP for seats in the upcoming election. Before the
JMB phenomenon, JI amir Nizami boasted his party would get
100 tickets. Now, JI officials talk about 40.

JMB Scorecard
--------------


7. (S) Progress is mixed.

A) Law Enforcement: A-. The BDG has wildly surpassed early
expectations that its investigation would bog down with the
arrests of lower-level activists. Capturing nearly 700 JMB
activists, including all shura members, and preventing any
attack since December 8 seemed unlikely as late as early
January. The BDG even took steps to shut down the Revival of
Islamic Heritage Society local office alleged to have
provided funds to JMB.

B) International Cooperation: B. USG experts had good access
to investigators and materials. Our requests for
interrogation records of senior JMB leaders have produced
informative if incomplete accounts. Disturbingly, though,
the BDG did not share with us in November and December JMB
threat information it developed involving Peace Corps
volunteers near Dhaka. It did, however, let us to interview
two senior JMB leaders, Jewel and Sunny, on that matter;

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while both leaders were circumspect, they did basically
validate the threat, and their arrests may have helped avert
a tragedy.

C) Building Institutional CT Capabilities: B-. Solid
progress toward launching a DGFI CT bureau, and movement on
promising AMLA and ATA drafts and creating a FIU. RAB
emerged as an effective CT strike unit.

D) Addressing JMB's Links to BNP, JI, or IOJ: F. No will to
acknowledge an issue or rock the boat, especially in an
election year.

E) Addressing the Underlying Causes of Extremism: D.
Unsolved crimes of extremist and political violence helped
create an enabling climate for terrorism. There is no
visible effort to solve those crimes, no recognition that
religious extremism played a role in creating JMB, no new
effort to improve government schools as an alternative to
madrassas, and no public criticism of anti-Ahmadiyya bigots
or others who act immoderately and intolerantly. Notably,
the Islamist scholars the BDG organized to condemn JMB did so
on the basis of JMB's tactics, not its goal of implementing
sharia law.

Looking Ahead
--------------


8. (S) The BDG's surprisingly strong scores on the law
enforcement side indicate there is good potential for
enhanced bilateral cooperation in CT and law enforcement, at
least in moving it up to the next level. (Ref e-mail
reviewed the capabilities of Bangladeshi law enforcement
agencies, and proposed areas for bilateral engagement.) It
also suggests we have dodged the nightmare scenario of a
resurgent JMB during an already turbulent election campaign,
which could have been catastrophic for the process. In a
four-month period sandwiching the 2001 election, political
violence killed 369 persons and injured nearly 17,000.


9. (S) The broader political challenges, however, are still
daunting since the BDG has shown no interest in dealing with
the root causes of extremist violence or their political
patrons. JMB is a double-edged sword politically for the
BNP, so the BNP cannot crow too loudly about its "breaking"
JMB. Faced with growing political liabilities in the form of
commodity price rises, acute fuel, power, and water shortages
stemming from bad policies and failing infrastructure, and
increasingly the perception of unbridled corruption at the
top of the BNP, the BDG's biggest claim of success is general
improvement in law and order via its creation of RAB.


10. (S) If the BNP wins the 2007 election, and its
complacency grows that it has defeated terrorism in
Bangladesh, the BDG may lose its CT focus -- until the next
attack comes. Against JMB, the BDG faced an opponent that
was relatively inexperienced and unsophisticated,
particularly in withstanding setbacks like senior leaders who
hemorrhaged information during interrogations. It also had
the advantage of knowing the JMB's top leaders, several of
whom had been previously arrested but then released by police
because of their ties to BNP leaders. A reconstituted JMB or
a new group, foreign or domestic, that is more resilient and
more of an unknown to the BDG could be a much harder nut to
crack.
CHAMMAS