Is ARSA a threat to Bangladesh?

Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi supremo
video conference at an unknown location

SALEEM SAMAD

Does the militant group’s presence spell trouble for Bangladesh?

Early this month, on information that members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) were holding a secret meeting in a mosque in a Rohingya camp, the Armed Police Battalion raided the site. When the raid occurred at Chakmarkul Rohingya Block-3 camp, Amtala mosque, the members escaped the dragnet. The police seized 72 pairs of sandals as evidence of the botched meeting.

The ARSA members are mostly recruits from among the Rohingya refugees. They mostly raise funds from the Rohingya living in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

ARSA is the fledgling Rohingya militant group whose attacks on police posts across northern Rakhine State on August 25, 2017, provided an excuse for the Tatmadaw’s (Myanmar military) brutal ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya that prompted the region’s most severe refugee crisis. The exodus of more than one million Rohingya from the restive Rakhine State has also brought ARSA supporters into Bangladesh, and have taken shelter in squalid refugee camps.

Explaining in a rare interview to the international media, Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi, commonly known simply as Ataullah, the supremo of ARSA said that their objective would be “open war” and “continued [armed] resistance” until “citizenship rights were reinstated” of the Rohingya in Myanmar. Ataullah denied any links to the Islamic State or ISIS in his August 2017 video and claimed he turned his back on support from Pakistani-based militants.

A security expert in Bangladesh explains that ARSA has ideological differences with other terror outfits and has reason to distance itself from the transnational jihadist network, which would compel Bangladeshi security forces to move against them.

For obvious reasons, the global terror network’s footprint is absent in the region. The territory is too hot to handle, as some experts explained, especially when India remains a threat to their physical presence. With dried ordinance, the militants were unable to launch any large-scale skirmishes with Myanmar troops after August 2017.

On the other hand, their hit-and-run tactics were significantly neutralized after the Myanmar troops’ crackdown on Rohingya Muslims. The Myanmar government labelled ARSA as “extremist Bangali terrorists,” warning that its goal is to establish an Islamic state in the region.

Myanmar also blames Pakistan’s spy agency ISI, claiming it has provided funds and logistics to ARSA. The security agencies have trained their eyes and ears on their activities. The officials said ARSA is also known as “Al Yakin” in the refugee camps, and the militants prey on people. 

They are responsible for a series of kidnaps, extortions, tortures, and executions of suspects. The recruiters from sleeping-cells disseminate a message that joining ARSA or “Al Yakin” is a Farj (a religious obligation).

However, ARSA remains focused on recruitment and indoctrination, followed by establishing small units and engaging in rudimentary military training. One such session of recruits was in progress in the Amtala mosque earlier this month.

The International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution nonprofit organization, claims that the network of members and supporters in Bangladesh are fairly large. The cash-starved Al Yakin, the volunteer group of ARSA, is mostly responsible for gang war to establish dominance over other non-militant groups in the camps. 

Often, there is breaking news from Rohingya refugee camps -- of robbers, dacoits, and armed gangs killed in encounters with anti-crime forces. The slain victims are radicalized Rohingya militants.

Despite that, ARSA’s name still commands a mix of cautious respect and fear among some in the Rohingya camps. The members maintain a low profile to avoid confrontation with Bangladesh security forces. 

For survival, the foot soldiers are engaged in providing armed escorts to cross-border smugglers and drug traders. ARSA’s militancy capabilities remain poor due to strict surveillance by security agencies -- reducing ARSA into a toothless tiger.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 17 August 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender. Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter: @saleemsamad

Sheikh Hasina deserves thanks for neutralise conflict in Assam

How Bangladesh helped Assam
SALEEM SAMAD

Early this year, New Delhi decided to withdraw the Indian Army from Assam, the neighbouring state in the northeast of India.

The conducting of a conflict assessment in the wake of a reduction in militancy in the region was the primary reason for the withdrawal of troops from Assam.

The top brasses in Indian defense were in the view that as the situation was improving in Assam, the state police should deal with it with the help of the Central Paramilitary Forces, according to The Assam Tribune.

Nearly two decades ago, the Indian army was deployed for counter-insurgency operations in Assam, in November 1990.

The dreaded militant groups National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB), United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), and other separatist armed groups were at the behest of Pakistan spy agency ISI, with their cohorts in Dhaka.

Bangladeshi territory was used by the militant leaders of ULFA, NDFB, and other insurgent groups in Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Manipur for their separatist movement.

The second-generation separatist leaders got renewed impetus in their illegal activities during the regime of Begum Khaleda Zia from 1991-1996 and again in 2001-2006. Pakistan was literally fighting a proxy war in the northeast through ISI covert operations in Dhaka.

The so-called headquarters of ULFA, NDFB, and others were dismantled, the leaders were pushed back from Bangladesh, months after Sheikh Hasina took oath in 2009. Since then, the entire gamut of militancy was physically immobilized in Bangladesh.

Thus, the cross-border terror came to a halt. The militant outfit’s bank accounts and other businesses were frozen by Bangladesh authorities. Several rogue elements in the Bangladesh government who were involved with aiding and abetting the militancy were punished and others reprimanded.

Recently, the NDFB(S) signed suspension of operations -- the ULFA remains the only major militant outfit active and the situation does not warrant deployment of the army all over the state -- the defense brass concludes.

On November 29, the Global Terrorism Index 2019 noted that Bangladesh had been the most successful South Asian country in countering terrorism. S Binodkumar Singh, Research Associate of Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi wrote: “Bangladesh had the largest improvement of any country in South Asia.”

Most of the militant leaders pushed back are presently active in negotiation for sustainable peace in the region. After being evicted from Bangladesh, the camps of the separatists moved to Myanmar. Myanmar military caused havoc on their camps recently.

The casualty from two decades of conflicts in northeast India has significantly reduced after Bangladesh had been able to neutralize the militancy and keep cross-border terror in check.

According to data from the Institute for Conflict Management, in 2000 the civilian casualty was 267, security forces 37, and extremists killed 223; while in 2019 civilian deaths dropped to one, security forces casualty to zero, and only two militants were killed.

The total deaths in 20 years comes to: 2,208 civilians, 340 security forces, and the number of separatists killed was 2,331 in 2,562 incidents of conflicts. The tripartite agreement was signed between NDFB President B Saoraigwra, the Assam government’s Ashutosh Agnihotri, and Union Home Joint Secretary (North-East) Satyendra Garg in New Delhi on January 17.

Bangladesh security forces were on high alert, and last June a team from the Bangladesh army and RAB, in a joint operation, recovered 12,000 weapons, including rocket launchers and machine guns, from the Satchari National Park.

Earlier in the year 2004, in a sensational recovery, 10 truckloads of arms and ammunition -- apparently smuggled in by ULFA’s military commander Paresh Barua from China -- were seized by the Bangladesh Army near Chittagong port.

The fugitive Paresh Barua, once a popular Assamese soccer player, was handed the death sentence by a Bangladesh court after he stood convicted in the 10-truck arms smuggling case.

Last November, a three-member pro-talk ULFA delegation -- Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, General Secretary Anup Chetia, and Foreign Secretary Sasadhar Choudhury - attended a formal discussion with interlocutor AB Mathur, a former special secretary of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) at an undisclosed location in New Delhi.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune on 2 March 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, and is a recipient of the Ashoka Fellow and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be followed on Twitter @saleemsamad

Rise of extremism in Bangladesh may affect NE Indian states: Bangladeshi journalist

IANS  |  Guwahati:

The rise of Islamist extremism in Bangladesh poses a serious threat not only to the religious minorities, secularists, intellectuals and other sects within the Muslim community, but also to India's northeastern states, says prominent Bangladesh-based journalist, Saleem Samad.

He was speaking to a group of journalists at Guwahati Press Club from Dhaka through video-conferencing on Friday evening.

An Ashoka Fellow and Hellman-Hammett Award recipient, Samad said an upsurge of fundamentalist forces in Bangladesh may affect Indian states that share the border with the country.

He said atheist and secularist bloggers are increasingly becoming the target of the Islamic extremists in Bangladesh.

He said other minority sects within the Muslim community such as the Ahmadiyyas also face threats of survival in Bangladesh due to the rise of Islamic extremism in the country.

He said thousands of Bangladeshi youths had joined various militia groups in Syria, Iraq, Chechnya, Indonesia, the Philippines, Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight alongside the jihadists there.

The senior journalist reiterated that currently there is no northeastern separatist leader in Bangladesh as the Sheikh Hasina government in Dhaka continues a rigorous crackdown on fundamentalist outfits.

A champion for media rights, Samad painted a dismal picture of press freedom in Bangladesh as journalists are frequently targeted by both state and non-State actors. He regretted that though 26 Bangladeshi journalists lost their lives to assailants since 1991, most cases remain unsolved.

Replying to questions about infiltration from Bangladesh to Assam, Samad said that none of the Indian leaders visiting Dhaka ever took up the issue of illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators in Assam with their counterparts.

Strongly advocating people-to-people contact between Assam (India) and Bangladesh, Samad lamented how Assam had missed the bus despite being so closely located, while other states such as West Bengal and Tripura were taking several steps to improve connectivity with Bangladesh via railway and roadways.

Emphasizing direct air connectivity between Guwahati and Dhaka, Samad said that trade and commerce along with cultural ties would help in erasing many misconceptions prevailing on both sides.

-IANS
First published in the Business Standard on 6 October 2018

Bangladesh hide and seek on presence of Islamic State militants

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh is embarrassed. So are the top officials of Interpol, security experts, academicians, police chiefs from the region attending the three-day long conference organized by Bangladesh Police and the Interpol in the capital.

Bangladesh Police top brass AKM Shahidul Hoque has denied the presence of Jihadist of Islamic State (IS or ISIS) in the country. "There is no presence of the Islamist terrorist outfit here," the inspector general of police maintained at impromptu press briefing on Monday morning.

"These are baseless propaganda. What we call militants are actually 'homegrown' who might have been embodied with IS philosophy and ideology. But they don't have any link with the IS," said Hoque. His reaction came in the wake of Prof Rohan Gunaratna, an international security expert, who affirmed on the presence of IS jihadist in Bangladesh and that the outfit carried out the Gulshan café attack on July 1.

What further embarrassed the government was the joint forces operation to disengage and neutralize the militants, release the hostages and regain control of the café, when his paper,  "Deradicalization of Militant: An Approach for Disengagement and Reintegration into Society,"

Government was enraged not only with his observation on presence of IS in Bangladesh, the military brass took the scholar's comments on delayed commando operation to regain the seized café, as an exception and interference into internal affairs.

Gunaratna said police should have immediately responded to the café attack and should not have lingered on for the commandos to join the operation. The conference seeks to build regional cooperation in curbing violent extremism and transnational crime.

In a typical IS  strategy, Gunaratna explained that the IS second phase was propaganda and the third phase was showdown. "The group that mounted the Holey Artisan attack is not the JMB. In fact, it is the IS," opined the expert.

But unfortunately, the Bangladeshi political leadership did not accept that the group that is operating is the IS, Gunaratna remarked.

Administration top officials, including Home Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Khan and the inspector general of police have repeatedly said that there is no presence of ISIS in Bangladesh. Prime Minster Sheikh Hasina described any such claims as local and foreign conspiracies.

There could be various reasons why the government is determined to justify non-existence of jihadist or Islamic militants who are linked to Al Qaeda or Islamic State. Head of Singapore based International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research Rohan Gunaratna, has claimed that terrorist network Islamic State has physical presence in Bangladesh.

Police chief Shahidul Hoque described Gunaratna as an academician, a professor of a university. In a virulent attack, Hoque observed that "he does not deal with any security issue. He has done his academic research on his own. But he does not have experience of the real issue of Bangladesh."

"What Mr Rohan said is his own statement. We don't endorse his statement," the IGP concluded. Born in Sri Lanka, Gunaratna interviewed terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Saudi Arabia and other conflict zones, according to his brief biography presented at the conference.

The United States 9/11 Commission formed after the attack of Twin-Tower in New York invited Gunaratna to testify on the structure of al-Qaeda.

Gunaratna, who teaches security studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, is also a trainer for national security agencies, law enforcement authorities and military counter-terrorism units, said his bio distributed at the conference.

This article first appeared in The Asian Age, March 14, 2017

Saleem Samad, is an Ashoka Fellow (USA), an award winning investigative journalist and writes on current affairs