Dhaka: Militant outfit Neo-JMB may have changed its target of attacks in order to attract attention, counter-terrorism officials apprehend. The group may now carry out terrorist attacks at crowded public places rather than attacking members of other religions and foreign nationals. “Neo-JMB is desperate to launch a massive attack in the county,” an official engaged in counter-terrorism operations said. As part of this desperation, the official added, the group had planned an attack near Dhanmondi…
Posts published in August 2017
By Andrew deGrandpre in The Washington Post, August 17 at 1:27 PM China’s state news agency has faced criticism for publishing a video that features a caricature of an Indian man. (Xinhua News) A state-run Chinese media agency faces growing backlash over its propaganda video demeaning India’s Sikh community, the latest development in what’s fast becoming a volatile border dispute between the two nuclear powers. Titled “7 Sins of India,” the video features a Chinese…
By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ in The New York Times online, Aug 17, 2017 BEIJING — A video produced by China’s state-run news media that features racist stereotypes of Indians has come under fire, adding to tensions between China and India as the two countries struggle to resolve a simmering border standoff. The English-language video, published by Xinhua, the official news agency of China’s central government, attempts to use humor to discredit India’s contention that China…
by Minnie Chan in South China Morning Post, Aug 17, 2017 A veteran of the Sino-Vietnamese war is expected to take a key vice-chairman role on China’s powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), military sources said. General Li Zuocheng, the 64-year-old commanding officer of the ground force of the People’s Liberation Army, will fill the vacancy left by CMC vice-chairman Xu Qiliang, several sources told the South China Morning Post. Xu is likely to take over…
by Zia Shahin in bdnews24.com, Aug 15, 2017 at 23.25hrs Bogra: A madrasa student has been allegedly assaulted in Bogra over his poetry praising Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The attackers beat the 18-year-old and shaved his hair off at Majhira of Shahjahanpur Upazila on Friday night, his family has said. The madrasa student, now in hiding, said he posted his poetry titled ‘An Extraordinary Poem on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’ around 10:30pm on last week’s…
Report in The Daily Star, Aug 15, 2017 Kushtia: Police recovered 16 petrol and crude bombs and some bomb-making materials from Saddam Hossain Hall at Islamic University in Kushtia on Sunday night and arrested two Shibir activists in this connection. The arrestees are Hasnat Hossain, a master’s student of computer science and engineering, and Golam Azam, a third-year student of Al Hadith and Islamic studies. On information, law enforcers raided different rooms of the dormitory…
by Golam Mortuja in Prothom Alo, Aug 12, 2017 at 17:26 hrs Alleged militant outfit, Ansar al Islam, said to be the Bangladesh chapter of al-Qaeda and which claimed the responsibility of killing bloggers, is disseminating its ideologies online. The militant group is circulating al-Qaeda Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ‘general instructions to jihad’ in Bangla which is seen by many terrorism experts as its political objective purpose. However, the government is apparently unconcerned over the activities of…
Report in Dhaka Tribune, Aug 16, 2017 by Md Hedait Hossain Molla Khulna, & Arifur Rahman Rabbi Saiful Islam, the militant who was killed, possibly by his own bombs, during a raid on Hotel Olio International in Panthapath, Dhaka on Tuesday morning, came to Dhaka only a week ago, telling his family that he was coming to the capital city to look for employment. The 21-year-old was a native of Noakati village in Shahosh union…
by Kamal Talukder in bdnews24.com, Aug 15, 2017 at 23:53:50.0 BdST Detectives have been raiding hotels and lodgings in Bangladesh’s capital after learning of plans for ‘large-scale violence” two months before the mourning month, said Monirul Islam, head of police’s counterterror unit. A madrasa student from Khulna, identified as Saiful Islam, he blew himself up on the fourth floor of Panthapath’s Hotel Olio International while it was surrounded by police on Tuesday morning. The hotel…
Report in The daily star, aug 16, 2017 A suspected suicide bomber of “Neo JMB” was killed during an anti-militancy operation at a city hotel yesterday as counterterrorism officials claim he had planned to carry out an attack on the crowd paying homage to Bangabandhu on National Mourning Day at Dhanmondi 32. The hotel is around half a kilometre off Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, the historic house in Dhanmondi where the Father of the Nation was…
by Laura Zhou in South China Morning Post, Aug 13, 2017 Beijing might have got its way over the language used in last week’s communique from Asean foreign ministers, but observers say its sweeping claims to the South China Sea are facing fresh challenges. At the gathering in Manila, Association of Southeast Asian Nations members avoided using any expressions that might displease Beijing in their statement regarding the territorial disputes. But Beijing is facing a…