By Jessica Donati in The Wall St Journal, Dec 15, 2017 at 5:30 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON—The botched terror attack in New York this week has created a fresh test for a new counterterrorism force tackling a growing U.S. concern: international extremism in Bangladesh, home of the suspect.
The Bangladesh-based Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime unit spearheading a probe into the failed attack, set up with U.S. help last year, was expected to focus on crime. But it was given a broad mandate to fight terrorism after an attack last year on a bakery in Dhaka the capital killed 20 people, mostly foreigners, including one U.S. citizen.
The crime unit now is working alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation to determine if the New York attacker, Akayed Ullah, had any links to local militant groups, putting an unwelcome spotlight on a problem the government has sought to play down in recent years. Mr. Ullah said he was inspired by Islamic State.
Until recently, the influence of transnational terrorist groups was considered comparatively small in the secular, mostly Sufi Muslim country of around 160 million people, which had been spared the extremism and sectarian conflict that has plagued neighbors like Pakistan.
Economic growth rates averaging around 6% over the past decade, according to the World Bank, has lifted millions out of poverty and the government is hoping to set Bangladesh on the same path as India or China.
“It’s still something that’s new for Bangladesh,” one Western security official in the country said, commenting on the government’s reluctance to link a pattern of attacks to global terrorist groups. “They don’t want to inspire fear in the local population and the expat community.”
A local Islamic State branch claimed responsibility for 18 attacks in Bangladesh last year, according to the State Department’s counterterrorism bureau, while Al Qaeda waged an assassination campaign against secular activists and bloggers and claimed two attacks including the killing of a local U.S. embassy employee.
The emergence of a small group of extremists claiming allegiance to either a local branch of Al Qaeda or Islamic State has rattled the government and unnerved the country’s huge aid and business community.
The U.S. Embassy has introduced additional security measures, including removing employee families from the country, making Bangladesh into what officials call a non-accompanied post.
Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the prime minister, has led an effective but brutal crackdown on alleged militants that has helped remove Islamic State leaders from the country.
The U.S. is bolstering local counterterrorism efforts with law-enforcement training and justice training, while American special operations forces are working with the Bangladeshi coast guard and other, including the unit that responded to the bakery attack last year.
“Terrorist organizations are losing their strength,” deputy counterterrorism commissioner Saiful Islam said in an interview this week.
Mr. Islam’s forces are investigating whether the New York bomber had any ties to local groups. He said nothing suspicious has emerged after interviews with the man’s family and associates. The bomber had probably been radicalized abroad, he said.
After a surge in incidents last year, terrorist groups have yet to stage anything on the scale of the bakery attack and the ensuing government crackdown appears to have hampered Islamic State efforts to expand in the country.
“Though it once seemed likely that [Islamic State] would eclipse al Qaeda in Bangladesh, momentum within the Bangladeshi jihadist landscape has now shifted decisively in al Qaeda’s favor,” Nathaniel Barr, now at the U.S. Defense Department, wrote earlier this month for the Jamestown Foundation while a private security consultant.
The country is confronting political strife, with increasingly bitter relations between the ruling secular Bangladesh Awami League, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and the opposition Bangladesh National Party, which is close to Islamist groups.
The influx of over 646,000 Rohingya refugees fleeing neighboring Myanmar is an additional burden that could stir more resentment among Islamist groups in the country.
“The political landscape has become extremely polarized and combustible,” said Dr. Matthew J. Nelson at the SOAS South Asia Institute. “This is extremely concerning.”
The government also faces the challenge of keeping up with rapid economic expansion that created huge shortfalls in infrastructure, energy and other urban needs, while there are still 28 million people below the poverty line.
With Bangladesh confronting a multitude of political and social challenges, the U.S. and others also are promoting a soft-power approach that involves teaching families to look for warning signs of extremism, and entails working on education and development initiatives.
Faiz Sobhan, research director at the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute, who is involved in such efforts, believes that much of the extremism is being fueled by events outside the country. “We have become a victim of what is happening globally.”https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-u-s-backed-force-leads-terrorism-fight-in-bangladesh-1513333800
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