Until last week, we worried about the long string of individual, targeted killings claimed by ISIS and AQIS as signs of an impending deeper involvement by transnational Islamism in Bangladesh. These murders were accelerating in recent weeks, but despite the ISIS/AQIS claims, were still being regarded by the government as perpetrated by local extremist organizations. ISIS did not have even a faint foothold in Bangladesh, according to the Awami League (AL) government.
An instant after the vicious and tragic July 1 terrorist attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in the upmarket Gulshan section of Dhaka, in which the 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, were murdered, it was clear that there had been a quantum leap in the stakes. This attack had much of the look of other ISIS attacks in other places. As The Daily Star wrote a few days later, “the targeted killings and now this massacre may not be organically linked but that they form a part of [something] bigger and more sinister should not be doubted anymore.”
Fear has been a debilitating factor in Bangladesh society for the past two and a half years primarily because of the actions of the government against its opposition, the political parties and civil society critics. This fear will certainly now be spreading through segments of the population that, until July 1, felt pretty safe. The attack on a popular gathering spot of the elite and of foreign residents is a game changer that will spread fear among the upper and middle classes, as well as among the expatriate community.
When I was in Dhaka in March and early April, fear was already the dominant emotion of many of my friends in civil society as well as among those I know in the political opposition to the Awami League government. Since its election in early 2014, the one-party AL government has been conducting a campaign to eliminate—let’s not beat around the bush—the main opposition party, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and its allies, especially the Islamist Jamaat-i-Islami (BJI). Many BNP members had been spirited off to jail on spurious charges, pressured to quit politics, or in some cases disappeared or killed extra judicially. The BNP is decimated, and from this distance, looks to be on the run. Candidly, I thought then that it would take years (and new leadership) to rebuild it into a viable opposition party. This attack may, however, even be a game changer for the BNP.
It was the fear that permeated parts of civil society that worried me most. Media organizations—newspaper editors, TV talk show hosts, and the like—who dared to question the government’s policies toward the opposition were under dire threat. Sedition charges were filed in court against editors whose articles criticized, or implied criticism, of the government, and were accepted by politicized judges. The editors of the two largest circulation newspapers had over 100 such cases filed against them. Clearly the government’s policy was to brook no opposition, and as a one-party government, it was clearly in a position to carry out this policy.
I wrote in early April of the great changes in Bangladesh society that I observed, especially the growth of the urban upper income and middle classes. My premise then, and now, is that the great majority of these parvenus felt no great threat from the government’s campaign to eliminate the BNP, nor from the series of gruesome individual murders that began in 2013 targeting at first bloggers advocating unorthodox ideas, and then spread to foreigners, Hindus, Christians, Shias, and others who don’t fit the stereotype Muslim image advocated by scriptualist Islam. After the July 1 attack, however, the threat to the elite is not just that its favorite gathering spots are not safe; even worse now must be the fear that its own sons and daughters may be among the attackers.
A lot is yet to be learned about the July 1 Dhaka attack. (For example, the Police are reported to have taken into custody for interrogation some of the hostages who managed to get away or were released by the attackers, and one of them may be still in custody as I write this.) But we do know, because the attackers posted their photos on ISIS websites, that they were not poor, madrassa-educated, alienated young people, but the sons of respected and well-to-do Bangladeshi families. One, evidently, was the son of an Awami League official. They are not only well off, but well educated, all either in or graduated from universities in Bangladesh or somewhere else in Asia. And, most interestingly to me at least, all seem to have disappeared in the few months before they turned up at the Holey Artisan Bakery at about 8 pm on July 1.
I find this disappearance/reappearance fascinating. Were they just sitting around in some out of the way corner planning the attack, or were they off on a training course on how to plan and carry out such attacks? And if the latter, who was the trainer? There is evidently some evidence now that ISIS is now recruiting among affluent, and urban student groups. The makeup of the July 1 attack force may add to that evidence. Also the organization and methods used in the attack were reflective of the ISIS method of operation (MO). This attack showed detailed planning, and that the bakery had been scouted in advance.
This all flies in the face of continued government assertions that ISIS is not active in Bangladesh. The Home Minister said so again yesterday. The advisor to the prime minister was a little less didactic, but avoided answering the question. Thus the question of whether the government is facing up to the new reality is clearly not answered yet. The temptation to blame it all on the opposition is still there; Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in her address to the nation, still referred to the attackers as “the conspiracy,” at least as far as I could make out from the translated summaries of her remarks. Clearly, “the conspiracy” is just another code word for the opposition.
It is difficult to judge not only whether the government can recognize the game-changing nature of the challenge, but whether it can eschew its policy of eliminating the opposition and set out to bridge the gaping divisions in a fragmented society in order to show a common front against what is certain to be continued challenges from extremist groups, be they local or transnational or both. The government must change its law enforcement focus to the terrorist threat. While there have been theatrical gestures, I see no evidence yet that the focus does not remain on the opposition, and if that remains the case, many more people will die, and the steady upward trend of Bangladesh’s economic and social progress will begin to falter.
I remain convinced that this focus on eliminating the opposition was one (not the only) factor which led to the string of killings that have now morphed into larger attacks against equally soft targets. Simply keeping the police and other security agencies focused on the opposition would have diminished their limited capacity, certainly in Dhaka, to prevent the individual killings and/or apprehend the culprits. Some of the official statements during that grim time did not help. Some of my colleagues have advocated more counter-terrorism assistance for the security and law enforcement agencies. After reading about the seeming confusion and almost chaos that seemed to obtain among those security forces on the scene at the Holey Artisan Bakery that night, it is clear more training is needed. However, rushing in with counterterrorism assistance before we see the government fix its focus on counterterrorism strikes me as irresponsible.
An instant after the vicious and tragic July 1 terrorist attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in the upmarket Gulshan section of Dhaka, in which the 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, were murdered, it was clear that there had been a quantum leap in the stakes. This attack had much of the look of other ISIS attacks in other places. As The Daily Star wrote a few days later, “the targeted killings and now this massacre may not be organically linked but that they form a part of [something] bigger and more sinister should not be doubted anymore.”
Fear has been a debilitating factor in Bangladesh society for the past two and a half years primarily because of the actions of the government against its opposition, the political parties and civil society critics. This fear will certainly now be spreading through segments of the population that, until July 1, felt pretty safe. The attack on a popular gathering spot of the elite and of foreign residents is a game changer that will spread fear among the upper and middle classes, as well as among the expatriate community.
When I was in Dhaka in March and early April, fear was already the dominant emotion of many of my friends in civil society as well as among those I know in the political opposition to the Awami League government. Since its election in early 2014, the one-party AL government has been conducting a campaign to eliminate—let’s not beat around the bush—the main opposition party, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and its allies, especially the Islamist Jamaat-i-Islami (BJI). Many BNP members had been spirited off to jail on spurious charges, pressured to quit politics, or in some cases disappeared or killed extra judicially. The BNP is decimated, and from this distance, looks to be on the run. Candidly, I thought then that it would take years (and new leadership) to rebuild it into a viable opposition party. This attack may, however, even be a game changer for the BNP.
It was the fear that permeated parts of civil society that worried me most. Media organizations—newspaper editors, TV talk show hosts, and the like—who dared to question the government’s policies toward the opposition were under dire threat. Sedition charges were filed in court against editors whose articles criticized, or implied criticism, of the government, and were accepted by politicized judges. The editors of the two largest circulation newspapers had over 100 such cases filed against them. Clearly the government’s policy was to brook no opposition, and as a one-party government, it was clearly in a position to carry out this policy.
I wrote in early April of the great changes in Bangladesh society that I observed, especially the growth of the urban upper income and middle classes. My premise then, and now, is that the great majority of these parvenus felt no great threat from the government’s campaign to eliminate the BNP, nor from the series of gruesome individual murders that began in 2013 targeting at first bloggers advocating unorthodox ideas, and then spread to foreigners, Hindus, Christians, Shias, and others who don’t fit the stereotype Muslim image advocated by scriptualist Islam. After the July 1 attack, however, the threat to the elite is not just that its favorite gathering spots are not safe; even worse now must be the fear that its own sons and daughters may be among the attackers.
A lot is yet to be learned about the July 1 Dhaka attack. (For example, the Police are reported to have taken into custody for interrogation some of the hostages who managed to get away or were released by the attackers, and one of them may be still in custody as I write this.) But we do know, because the attackers posted their photos on ISIS websites, that they were not poor, madrassa-educated, alienated young people, but the sons of respected and well-to-do Bangladeshi families. One, evidently, was the son of an Awami League official. They are not only well off, but well educated, all either in or graduated from universities in Bangladesh or somewhere else in Asia. And, most interestingly to me at least, all seem to have disappeared in the few months before they turned up at the Holey Artisan Bakery at about 8 pm on July 1.
I find this disappearance/reappearance fascinating. Were they just sitting around in some out of the way corner planning the attack, or were they off on a training course on how to plan and carry out such attacks? And if the latter, who was the trainer? There is evidently some evidence now that ISIS is now recruiting among affluent, and urban student groups. The makeup of the July 1 attack force may add to that evidence. Also the organization and methods used in the attack were reflective of the ISIS method of operation (MO). This attack showed detailed planning, and that the bakery had been scouted in advance.
This all flies in the face of continued government assertions that ISIS is not active in Bangladesh. The Home Minister said so again yesterday. The advisor to the prime minister was a little less didactic, but avoided answering the question. Thus the question of whether the government is facing up to the new reality is clearly not answered yet. The temptation to blame it all on the opposition is still there; Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in her address to the nation, still referred to the attackers as “the conspiracy,” at least as far as I could make out from the translated summaries of her remarks. Clearly, “the conspiracy” is just another code word for the opposition.
It is difficult to judge not only whether the government can recognize the game-changing nature of the challenge, but whether it can eschew its policy of eliminating the opposition and set out to bridge the gaping divisions in a fragmented society in order to show a common front against what is certain to be continued challenges from extremist groups, be they local or transnational or both. The government must change its law enforcement focus to the terrorist threat. While there have been theatrical gestures, I see no evidence yet that the focus does not remain on the opposition, and if that remains the case, many more people will die, and the steady upward trend of Bangladesh’s economic and social progress will begin to falter.
I remain convinced that this focus on eliminating the opposition was one (not the only) factor which led to the string of killings that have now morphed into larger attacks against equally soft targets. Simply keeping the police and other security agencies focused on the opposition would have diminished their limited capacity, certainly in Dhaka, to prevent the individual killings and/or apprehend the culprits. Some of the official statements during that grim time did not help. Some of my colleagues have advocated more counter-terrorism assistance for the security and law enforcement agencies. After reading about the seeming confusion and almost chaos that seemed to obtain among those security forces on the scene at the Holey Artisan Bakery that night, it is clear more training is needed. However, rushing in with counterterrorism assistance before we see the government fix its focus on counterterrorism strikes me as irresponsible.