Militants staging a comeback, police suspect

The snatching of two Ansar Al Islam militants, both death row convicts, from a Dhaka court in broad daylight in the presence of law enforcers has reinforced police suspicions that the outfit has been regrouping.

The escape, which has become the talk of the town, has led to the suspension of five police officials, as confirmed by the Detective Branch of Police Chief Harun Or Rashid at a press briefing in the capital on Monday.

But what led the radical outfit, which had gone quiet after the 2016 murder of Xulhaz Mannan, an LGBTQ rights activist, and his friend Khandoker Mahbub Rabby Tonoy, to mark its return in such an attention-rousing manner?

The outfit re-emerged in the spotlight earlier in August this year, after seven youths went missing from the southern district of Cumilla.

Later in October, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) announced that it had arrested seven people, including four who went missing from their homes in Cumilla and elsewhere with suspected ties to radical groups, in raids in and around the capital.

At the moment, the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police maintains that Ansar Al Islam has no plans to carry out any attacks but its recruitment and training activities are going on.

Recruitment and initial training are done online, whereas advanced training – for the outfit's military wing – is given in person in some remote areas of the country, counterterrorism officials told The Business Standard.

The Rapid Action Battalion had arrested seven members of a new militant outfit Jama'atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya during drives in the Chattogram Hill Tracts, with parts of the area reportedly being used as training bases.

Meanwhile, according to data, around fifty Ansar Al Islam members and activists have been arrested so far this year by police and the Rapid Action Battalion. Most of them were inspired by the group's online activities.

Police also suspect that sacked army officer Syed Mohammad Ziaul Haque, alias Major Zia, masterminded Sunday's escape of the two militants.

According to the case statement filed on Sunday night with Kotwali Police Station, the snatching was planned and directed by Major Zia, who is believed to be the chief of the military branch of Ansar Al Islam (AAI)/Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT).

The case named Ziaul and 20 other unidentified persons. It said two convicted extremists, Arafat Rahman and Abdus Sabur, who could not escape, confessed during police interrogation that they had prior knowledge about the plot.

On 16 February 2021, Zia was handed the death penalty by a court for his role in the murder of Bangladeshi-American engineer and blogger Avijit Roy.

Arrests impending

Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Additional Commissioner Mohammad Harun-Ur-Rashid said on Monday, "Everyone will be brought under the law. They [escaped militants, their associates] are currently under surveillance. We will be able to arrest them soon."

The police have already issued a red alert across the country to prevent them from escaping, he added.

Stating that patrols are being strengthened across the country and CCTV footage is being analysed and monitored, the additional commissioner said security had also been beefed up.

Primary CCTV footage analysis of the court area in Old Dhaka suggested that around 18-20 people participated in the snatching incident and they used motorbikes with fake registrations, said investigators.

An officer of the Rapid Action Battalion said the force traced movements of those behind the ambush and the escapees till Jatrabari, before losing track.

Police Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit chief Asaduzzaman said they have identified the persons involved, but could not disclose names and details in the interest of investigation.

CTTC officials visited Kashimpur jail in Narayanganj to interrogate extremists and suspected extremists about the incident.

The unit's chief Asaduzzaman suspected that there might have been a plot for a bigger ambush, but it could not take place since only four extremists were being escorted to the CMM lockup.

Asaduzzaman said that the escapees and ambushers are all members of the AAI, an extremist organisation linked to Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent.  

The Bangladesh government banned the AAI in 2017.

RAB is also analysing the previous crime patterns of the two death row escapees– Mainul Islam Shamim and Abu Siddique Sohel.

Mainul and Sohel, who are from Sunamganj and Lalmonirhat, are among eight extremists sentenced to death for killing publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan. Sohel was also handed a death sentence for killing Bangladeshi-American writer and blogger Avijit Roy.

At around 12 noon on Sunday, when policemen were taking two militants to court custody (court prison) at the Dhaka Chief Judicial Magistrate Court premises, some unidentified persons swooped on the law enforcers, assaulting and pepper-spraying them, before snatching the two militants.

Both the militants were handcuffed and tied with a rope at the time. They were rushed to a nearby motorcycle.

Ansar Al Islam in recent years

Ansar al Islam received about Tk1.5 crore in the last three-and-half-years from people in the UK and Australia for its operational activities as it plans its comeback, according to police.

To sponsor the resurgence, sympathisers of the outfit, many of whom are non-resident Bangladeshis, are sending in money through hundi, the cross-border money transfer method that bypasses the legal banking system.

According to a CTTC journal, around 17% of the country's militant attacks from 1999-2020 were carried out by the banned militant organisation.

Ansar al Islam, popularly known as Ansarullah Bangla Team, mainly perpetrated clandestine attacks, targeting individuals who according to them were atheists. From February 2013 to April 2016, AAI/ABT killed 17 individuals.

Following the preaching of American-Yemeni cleric Anwar-al Awlaki, the AAI has mostly targeted online activists and secular writers.

AAI officially claimed itself as the Bangladeshi branch of Al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) on 7 August, 2015.

The modus operandi of the AAI suggests that the group usually look for quiet places to hack targets to death with machetes.

In Bangladesh, second generation terrorism evolved with emergence of new terrorist sleeper cells inspired by Al-Qaeda in 2013.

Unlike other top militant groups, most of the organisers and activists of ABT and AAI are young, university educated, tech savvy and from affluent society.