Dhaka: Why Gulshan and Sholakia attacks were waiting to happen

The Gulshan and Sholakia attacks exposed the depth of radicalization of elite Bangla youth. All of last week, Dhaka's upscale neighbourhoods were abuzz with talk of missing sons.
There were, of course, the five Gulshan terrorists who had all run away from home. Then there was the Sholakia attacker Abir Rahman, a BBA final-year student of the same North-South University, who had been missing since March though his family only filed a report on July 6. Jahidul Haque Tanim (23), a third-year student of English at a government college in Dhaka, another extremist at Sholakia, too was a runaway.
Bangladesh media puts the missing in the hundreds, but security officials estimate 20 from Dhaka's affluent families alone, and over 50 from other parts of Bangladesh. Some families don't report the disappearing in the hope that their sons will return, while others are in denial. But a few do know that their sons have been lost to Islamist militancy.

Secular vs Islamist
The debate over Islam's role in Bangladesh has been brewing since 1971. Bangladeshi American poet Tarfia Faizullah said it best: "Are you / Muslim or Bengali, they / asked again and again. / Both, I said, both."

Though the country's Constitution was written to include secularism as one of its main tenets, in 1988, Islam was declared the official religion. In 2010, the courts restored secularism as a fundamental principle, Islam stayed the state religion. Only a resolution of this apparent contradiction may determine the future of the nation and its vibrant civil society.

How Islam got the upper hand
The mother of all jihadi systems in Bangladesh is the now banned Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) which partnered with Begum Khaleda Zia's BNP for a full term in government. It took charge of education and social welfare portfolios and in this period infiltrated social, religious and educational institutions. Islamic Chattra Shibir, the student's wing of JI, conducts indoctrination of youths from colleges and universities.

Jamaat leaders have been convicted and executed in Bangladesh's ongoing war crimes trials. The present attacks, terror analysts say, could be retaliation for the recent hanging of their leader Motiur Rehman Nizami. The last big trial - of Mir Qasim, one of the last top JI leaders and its biggest fundraiser - is scheduled for end July.

Who funds the terror?
The money trail is not only diffuse but blurry. The ISI is a big suspect, as is Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has a presence in Bangladesh. In fact, many Bangladesh security officials have commented on the similarity between the Gulshan attack and LeT's Mumbai strike. In December 2015, Bangladesh expelled a Pakistani diplomat Farina Arshad after she was caught funnelling money to the banned Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) which has an insidious and extensive network within the country.

The Jamaat is very well funded. HT Imam, political adviser to Sheikh Hasina, has said the London central mosque is among its largest fund-raisers and sends the money home with expats. The Jamaat runs the biggest bank in Bangladesh, the Islami Bank, English schools and madrassas, employment exchanges and professional institutions. The Islami Bank's CSR activity is a Shariah Fund. What does the fund do? "Not anything good," says Imam.

In recent years, Hasina has embarked on a fairly major operation against the ISI, for instance, shutting down several big FICN (fake Indian currency notes) networks. But she can't move against the money coming from Gulf countries and the Islamic charities there as Bangladesh gets a lot of aid from these countries and is in no position to question them.

There are other terror groups too
There is the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) owing allegiance to the ISIS and the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), which is a part of the al Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). The JMB, formed in 1998, became infamous when it conducted near-simultaneous bomb blasts in 63 of 64 districts on August 16, 2005. In 2007, the government executed six of its top leaders. In 2015, it declared itself a part of the ISIS. The ABT, a more recent creation, is part of the al-Qaida network, and likes to take on more educated, elite recruits.

A new element is the emergence of Hizbut Tahrir (HT) - an extreme Islamic group that is without the violent element. But Bangladesh Rapid Action Battalion officials say that Hasnat Karim, apparently linked to the Gulshan attackers, had HT links.

But the overlay to everything is a toxic political fight-unto-death rivalry between the BNP (with JI) and the Awami League. There is also no denying that there is some domestic support for Islamism. Say scholars Christine Fair, Ali Hamza and Rebecca Heller in a recent paper, "Who supports Islamist militancy in Bangladesh?": "We find high levels of support for suicide bombing...Males and those who view themselves as economically well-off are more supportive of suicide attacks, whereas those who are better educated are less supportive."

Sheikh Hasina has quite a challenge ahead of her if she is serious about battling escalating Islamist militancy.