One Italian aid worker named Cesare Tavella, who was a project manager of a Netherlands-based NGO in Bangladesh, was shot dead in the diplomatic quarter of capital Dhaka on September 28, 2015. Few days later on October 3, a Japanese national named Hoshi Kunio was killed by some gunmen in northern Bangladesh. According to the SITE Intelligence Group, a US based monitoring group on Jihadi activities, the Islamic State (IS) group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has claimed responsibility of killing both the foreign citizens. Again on October 24, as per the same SITE Intelligence Group, IS posted an online statement claiming responsibility for the unprecedented bomb attack on a Shiite gathering at Old Dhaka which killed 1 and injured more than 70 people. But Hasina government refused to admit any linkage between IS and the said atrocities, labeling them as ‘isolated incidents’.
Comments:
Bangladesh now finds itself at a critical juncture in South Asian region, facing severe present and potential threat to its own sovereignty due to the geopolitical power struggle between global and regional powers. A series of deadly attacks on the foreigners within a short span of time along with the first-time attack on Shiite community are some worrying signs of security deterioration, and more worrying is the fact that such situations global powers like America deliberately design to exploit to secure their colonial interest in many parts of the world. In recent history, America has been using ‘false flag operations’ in the form of bomb blasts on Shiite procession and mosques to create Shia-Sunni strife in Iraq and Pakistan in order to justify its presence and intervention under the pretext of so-called ‘War on Terror’.
We observed that soon after every attack, statements surfaced on the social media allegedly from the so-called ‘Islamic State’ assuming responsibility of the attacks. The only organization that incessantly kept on claiming IS’s links with all these atrocities is SITE Intelligence Group, a US-based Jihadi monitoring group consisted of prominent counter-terrorism consultants of US government that receives financial support from US government. When Bruce Hoffman, a senior fellow at the United States Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center, is also a Senior Advisor to the SITE, it is quite telling that this group’s statements carry political significance. Moreover, a former political scientist of the infamous RAND Corporation Christine Fair who is currently an expert on armed groups in Indian Subcontinent at Georgetown University said to Al Jazeera in an interview after these killings in Bangladesh: “Bangladesh is a potential problem that people are just not focusing on”. She also believes that a troublingly high level of support for groups with ideologies akin to ISIL exists in Bangladesh. In addition, US Embassy Bangladesh issued a security message on 28 September 2015 to their nationals staying in Bangladesh about the potential life threat on the Westerners. And, interestingly, the Italian citizen was shot dead on the same date after this announcement, leaving many people’s eyebrows raised in suspicion. When US Ambassador Marcia Bernicat labeled the threats from IS as ‘credible and real’ in Bangladesh, the Home Affairs Minister of Bangladesh Asaduzzaman Khan said: “Oh, it’s absolutely rubbish, there is no IS in the country, no way”. He also said the US embassy failed to give any specific information detailing the threats.
In light of the above facts, it seems that America is concocting conspiracies against Bangladesh to drag the country into the despicable ‘War on Terror’ under the pretext of IS’s existence here. America can easily sense the failure of Democracy here in Bangladesh and also is becoming increasingly fearful of the imminent rise of the Khilafah from here. Amid government tyranny and oppression, no other opposition is visible in Bangladesh other than the caravan of truth – Hizb ut Tahrir. It now seeks more intense participation of Bangladesh in her all-out war against Islam under the excuse of IS’s presence and that is why we now see repeated false flag operations by America to make Bangladesh another scapegoat like Pakistan in its crusade against Islam.
Imadul Amin
Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Bangladesh
