Bangladesh: Admitting the Presence of ISIS: New Age Islam's Selection, 06 July 2016
New Age
Islam Edit Bureau
06 July 2016
• Bangladesh: Admitting the Presence of ISIS
By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
• Attacking the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah: Significance and Consequences
By Faisal J. Abbas
• Terrorism: The World Is Now a Singular Target
By Bikram Vohra
• Why Referendums Are Bad For Democracy
By Dr. Azeem Ibrahim
• The Woes of Bangladesh
By Mahir Ali
• Funding Hezbollah Bothers Iranians
By Diana Moukalled
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Bangladesh: Admitting the Presence Of ISIS
By Abdulrahman al-Rashed
5 July 2016
Bangladesh is one of the world’s most densely populated countries. It is the world’s seventh most populous nation with 160 million people, and the third most populous Muslim nation after Indonesia and Pakistan.
There are four political parties in Bangladesh. The largest is the Jamaat-e-Islami, which is a political party. Islamist parties have the freedom to perform their political and social activities.
However, frequent acts of violence confirm that religious extremism has developed from a mere ideology into the establishment of terror groups. Bangladesh has witnessed a dangerous transformation led by religious groups that are similar to those that established terror groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East.
In Denial
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed the abduction and murder of more than 20 hostages, most of them Italian and Japanese. This confirms that what Bangladesh’s government denied in the past is not true. Previous terror crimes were attributed to local opposition groups. Last year, an Italian working for a humanitarian organization, and a Japanese man working in agriculture, were killed.
Previous terror crimes were attributed to local opposition groups. The government refused to admit the problem, and to describe it as terrorism
The government refused to admit the problem, and to describe it as terrorism. These operations were carried out nationwide, and targeted cultural and political figures. A publisher was killed in Dhaka. Before that, a writer was stabbed and another shot. The publisher had informed the police of threats made against him by ISIS, but the police considered the threats an individual act. Four bloggers had also been killed.
Since the recent abduction involved the murder of more than 20 hostages and received international attention, there is no longer doubt about the validity of ISIS’s claim of responsibility.
In the past 10 years, we have seen many manifestations of extremism travelling to Bangladesh from the Middle East, via extremist religious preaching and collecting funds in the name of charity. There are no occupying forces or foreign powers in Bangladesh. There is no civil war and most of its population is Muslim, the majority Sunni. However, this did not prevent extremism, which claims there is Western culture and immoral values that must be fought.
What is happening in Bangladesh is happening in other countries with the same methods. However, cooperation between countries is limited to exchanging information about organizations and criminals, and their financial transactions and marketing tools.
The cooperation does not include anything about their ideologies, or about environments that foster extremist intellect and then terrorism. What is the point of this delayed cooperation when the disease has spread?
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2016/07/05/Bangladesh-Admitting-the-presence-of-ISIS.html
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Attacking the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah: Significance and Consequences
By Faisal J. Abbas
6 July 2016
Just when you thought ISIS militants couldn’t add anything more gruesome to their image, they proved us all wrong again on Tuesday when they targeted Prophet Mohammad’s Mosque in Madinah. The Mosque (known in Arabic as al-Masjid al-Nabawi) is one of two holy shrines the kingdom hosts, and was one of three locations in Saudi Arabia targeted by terrorists on the same day.
Internal investigations are underway to reveal the identity of perpetrators and whether or not the attacks were coordinated. Until then, it is safe to say that all three cases carry ISIS-like fingerprints, both in terms of execution and motives.
More importantly, and contrary to what some may think, ISIS does declare the kingdom an enemy, and only a few weeks ago, an ISIS leader called upon his horrid clan worldwide to launch attacks against their foes throughout Ramadan (the Muslim holy month of fasting which concluded yesterday).
ISIS declares the kingdom an enemy, and only a few weeks ago, an ISIS leader called upon his horrid clan worldwide to launch attacks against their foes throughout Ramadan
The first attack, which occurred near the American Consulate in the coastal city of Jeddah, may have not only been meant as a jab at the West; but had it not been prevented it would have definitely ‘poisoned the water’ between Saudi Arabia and the United States.
The second attack targeted two Shiite mosques in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. The Shiite sect are a minority in the kingdom and have previously had their own issues with the government. However, they (Shiites) are also a declared enemy of ISIS. As such, had this attack been successful it would have also managed achieve two things: kill Shiites while also creating tension between this minority and the government by making it seem as if they weren’t properly protected by the kingdom’s security forces.
A map showing Jeddah, Qatif and Madinah - the three locations in Saudi Arabia targeted by terrorists on the same day. (Photo courtesy: Google Maps)
A Horrific Scenario
Yet, the most significant of all three attacks was definitely the attempt on the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah. There are no words that could describe the horrific impact this attack – had it been successful – both in terms of symbolic significance and the potential number of casualties.
So far, media reports have carried the following scenario: the bomber arrived to the mosque from the southern side during the sunset prayers (the time of breaking the Muslim fast). He was then stopped by Saudi security forces who informed him that he was attempting to enter a restricted area which is only meant to be used as an exit passage for the people praying inside the mosque.
Assuming that he (the bomber) was there to pray and break his fast, the officers offered him to join them for Iftar. However, the bomber ran towards the mosque before he was stopped by the guards.
Surrounded with nowhere to run, the terrorist detonated the bomb killing himself and the officers whose bravery and sacrifice prevented the attack from harming tens of thousands of innocent worshipers.
Condemnation Is Not Enough
As expected, the Madinah attack resulted in a wave of solidarity and condemnation across the globe. However, just because it was foiled, we shouldn’t simply move on or ignore its significance.
Indeed, this is an attack that – literally – targeted the heart of Islam itself. As such, it must serve as an eye-opener to any remaining ISIS sympathizers among us who may still believe that their evil creed has anything to do with humanity, let alone Islam.
If this horrid attack doesn’t stir unprecedented worldwide protests, then we – Muslims - deserve to be called nothing less than ‘hypocritical’
And to those who are not ISIS sympathizers, but remain silent or indifferent… now is the time to speak up. Most definitely, if this horrid attack doesn’t stir unprecedented worldwide protests, then we – Muslims - deserve to be called nothing less than ‘hypocritical’.
Why do protests only occur only when ‘the West’ is perceived to have humiliated Islam with, for example, a Danish cartoon or by something as trivial a British school teacher innocently agreeing that her Muslim students call their teddy bear Mohammad?
Isn’t an attack on a holy mosque which contains the prophet’s resting place a far bigger insult to Islam? Or does an insult become acceptable if it the perpetrator was “one of us?” (Obviously, the answer is ‘no’)
However, it could also be argued that what is needed now is not anger nor protests. All we need is to apply and accept common sense; after all, it wouldn’t be logical to believe that someone would attack the prophet… in the name of this same prophet!
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2016/07/06/Attacking-the-Prophet-s-Mosque-in-Madinah-significance-and-consequences-.html
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Terrorism: The World Is Now a Singular Target
By Bikram Vohra
6 July 2016
What has been happening in the past few days has brought about a fresh clarity on the question of terrorism per se.
Turkey, Bangladesh, Iraq, Saudi Arabia — it has been a cruel fortnight. The world has realized that it is a scourge that knows no boundaries and has no limits on its twisted philosophies or what it preaches as a gospel of violence.
Those who have linked Daesh ideology with Saudi Arabian doctrines will have to consider a rethink because terrorism has now spilt over boundaries. This target was not a temple or a church, it was the fountainhead of Islam which means everyone is their enemy and the Muslims are now facing the brunt of it.
After the blast in Madinah as the Islamic world prepared for Eid and the violation of a very sacred spot one can sense the shock and dismay in the people themselves. The public at large is incensed by the act and this could well mark a turning point in public perceptions. The general tolerance we sometimes witness globally of every incident of militancy in that it does not concern us directly or is softened by distance is now no longer a luxury that can be afforded. It is not a newspaper headline or the first take on the news. Hitting at the very core of the religion and underscoring that nothing is sacred to these people must now translate into a common purpose and a coming together of every nation that calls for peace and prosperity and does not want its people waking up to the stench of cordite and the blast of the gun.
It is time to take into account that the double standard by media must also be removed. Je suis Paris should become Je suis World. But it does not. When it is Kabul or Dhaka, Baghdad or Istanbul the global coverage dips as if in unspoken agreement it is them killing their own so not our problem.
But it is. If we look at the blood trail, more Muslims are targeted by Daesh than others. It would seem that Islam is now their primary target.The innocent are killed so regularly now that we have, as human beings, gone into state of short circuited synapses.
The relative coverage is almost a silent acceptance that in some way the men, women and children in these countries deserve to be targets.
The Madinah factor will make that difference and now even sympathizers will be hard placed to act as conduits of any sort, be it in giving refuge or supplies or moral support. And critics will have to ask themselves if they can lay to rest their hostility.
Governments themselves have no recourse now but to settle their other differences or put them aside for now and sit together and devise a consolidated multi-tiered plan of action. For the GCC and the Middle East between wars and the increasing savagery of extremism it is heartening that all nations are on the same page and mean business. Within 24 hours Kuwait struck at Daesh bases.
This is no longer a question of the west fighting the threat on its own terms or South Asia taking up the battle by itself or the Middle East going it alone or Africa having issues that do not concern others. Those days of isolated confrontations are over. The days of personal prejudices and hostility are also over. We have to see beyond our religious and geographical enclaves.
The world is now a singular target.
In this fashion, terrorist groups have also to be seen as a single entity and no longer divided into categories to suit political agendas. Terrorists have no nationality and no religious protection across the board.
Once this is done then every nation on the planet has to create a similar sense of oneness and share information, exchange real time data and co-operate as a team. If they cannot do that terrorism will never go away. What would then happen is 6 billion people would be potential collateral damage.
By that token the economic routes have to be traced and blocked as do the sales of armament. Terrorism is an expensive business and also a fragile one if it is not fed bullion and bullets. If these roadblocks are put into place recruitment itself will go into a slowdown.
The World Summit on Counter terrorism wants to discuss the unpuzzling of this global plague. The sooner it meets the better and gets on with the job of making the world a better place.
Source: arabnews.com/node/949771/columns
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Why Referendums Are Bad For Democracy
By Dr. Azeem Ibrahim
6 July 2016
This country has come very close to breaking apart in the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum. And it is even closer to coming apart now, after the EU membership referendum. This begs the question: why do we have referendums at all?
Single issue referenda like the ones we have had in the last couple of years, and like the one in 2011 on the Alternative Vote system for electing MPs, are held up as the purest examples of people power made manifest – the highest example of democratic practice we see in our complex Western societies in modern times. But are they?
Sometimes such plebiscites may be unavoidable. Sometimes, there may be no precedents for a specific political course of action, and the elected representatives of the people may be judged to not have the required authority to make the decision by themselves. The Scottish Independence referendum was perhaps one such case, after the Scottish National Party was elected with a majority at Holyrood on a platform of having such a referendum.
But the EU referendum was most certainly not required: it was a political choice made by a Prime Minister pursuing party interest, on the assumption that he would win it easily and could pacify a certain wing of his party and a certain demographic in the country. That assumption has been confounded, and the referendum has ended up being the most momentous political moment in our lifetimes.
‘Clever’ Political Gambit
Yet the risk of making just this kind of stupid miscalculation in some “clever” political gambit is not nearly the worst aspect of having referenda, or the most damaging to democracy. Rather, the most concerning aspect, especially when the referenda are on issues that relate to political and national identity as has been the case in the Scottish Independence and the Brexit referenda, is the polarising and dividing effect they have on society.
The EU referendum was most certainly not required: it was a political choice made by a Prime Minister pursuing party interest
I have been involved in two referenda now, the Scottish and the EU ones, and both I believe have been hugely damaging to the social fabric of society. In Scotland it brought out the worst amongst some of the nationalists. Much has been made of the so-called ‘civic nationalism’ espoused by many of the leading proponent of Independence. Not much covered was the other side: the raging and raving ‘Celtic’ ethnocentrism heavily prominent in the art and music of the campaign, and the anti-English xenophobia.
I have seen nationalism all over the world. It is ugly in every form. And no matter how high-minded educated political leaders try to make it sound, their groundswell of popular backing will always find cause for bitter identity politics which can easily overflow into ethnic conflict.
There have been relatively few concerning incidents following the Scottish referendum, but the same cannot be said of what has happened since the Brexit referendum – not least because the nationalist vote has won. And with that victory, no matter the fact that the majority of Leave voters would not have been motivated by xenophobia, the significant minority of racists have felt emboldened to come out from their caves and cause an upsurge in ‘celebratory’ racist incidents and attacks against anyone remotely ‘foreign’: European nationals, non-European foreigners, and even British-born non-White people.
But the divisions run much deeper than that. The uptick in racist incidents can safely be attributed to a minority of idiots. What is much more wide-spread, and much more concerning, is the way in which the polarisation of the democratic debate between ‘patriots’ and ‘traitors’, between ‘elites’ and ‘ordinary, decent people’ means that we now live in a society where one half is refusing to engage with the other. A society where neither half is willing to assume that it shares a community of interest with the other half. In other words, we find ourselves in two countries.
Will these halves come back together again? Will we ever be a country where we can have a democratic conversation with each other in good faith and with an understanding that we need to work together if we are to succeed? At the moment, there is little to be optimistic about: if the lessons of the United States are anything to go by, once one half of the country refuses to talk to the other, all we can look forward to is political dysfunction and social strife.
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2016/07/06/Why-referenda-are-bad-for-democracy.html
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The Woes Of Bangladesh
By Mahir Ali
6 July 2016
I came across no proclamations of “je suis Istanbul” last week, nor any protestations of “je suis Dhaka,” let alone Baghdad, over the weekend, in the aftermath of three horrendous terrorist attacks as the holy month of fasting drew to an end.
It is supposed to be a period not just of dawn-to-dusk fasting but of introspection and forbearance. Sadly, it has also been a month of carnage.
Connections between the massacre in Orlando and Daesh remain dubious, notwithstanding the perpetrator’s claims to the contrary, but the outrages at Ataturk airport and the Holey Artisan Cafe, not to mention Baghdad, clearly were instigated by Daesh, which deployed militants from the former Soviet Union in Turkey and apparently relied on Bangladeshi recruits for the assault in Dhaka.
There may not be too many parallels to draw between Turkey and Bangladesh, but both are overwhelmingly Muslim-majority states with a questionable secular facade and both are governed by leaders inclined to treat the opposition as a nuisance rather than as a necessary component of an ostensibly democratic polity.
In the face of frequent murderous attacks on individuals ranging from secular bloggers and gay activists to Hindus, Buddhists and Christians, at least some of them claimed by Daesh or Al-Qaeda, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed has more or less consistently declared that neither of those organizations had a foothold in Bangladesh and that the perpetrators were locals in terms of both breeding and instigation.
That is not an entirely absurd line of argument, given that Bangladesh has been burdened with fundamentalists since before it gained independence in 1971, and that substantial numbers of them played an insidious role during the war of liberation.
The parallels that have been drawn between the current terrorizing of the intelligentsia and the efforts to effectively eliminate it 45 years ago are in fact far from ridiculous.
It has even been contended that the belated recent trials of Jamaat-e-Islami stalwarts, followed in some cases by executions, are a crucial motivating factor in the murderous campaign against those seen as particular foes of the fundamentalist creed.
It is not uncommon for those deemed guilty of war crimes to be put on trial decades after their purported deeds were perpetrated. There are still cases of Nazi functionaries and collaborators ending up in court and, if found guilty, being sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
In the case of Bangladesh, it is of course notable that none of the military officers who might have been responsible for mass killings were ever put in the dock. It obviously does not follow that their collaborators in locally constituted militias should also get away scot free. The trouble is that all too many international observers have expressed dissatisfaction at the conduct of the trials. Whether or not justice was done, it wasn’t seen to be done.
That plays into the narrative that the Awami League government is more concerned about scoring political points — the Jamaat being any ally of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia — than about pursuing historical justice.
On the other hand, links between local fundamentalist outfits and the international terror phenomenon obviously can no longer be disregarded, as Sheikh Hasina has hitherto tended to do. It does not require much ingenuity to establish such connections. Most of the gunmen who stormed the Holey Artisan Cafe in Dhaka’s Gulshan district, which is relatively well protected, not least because it includes a diplomatic enclave, around Iftar time on Friday have been hailed by a Daesh web outlet, which could hardly be a coincidence. The fact that most of them were known to the police, and may have been associated with Jamait ul Mujahideen Bangladesh doesn’t necessarily vindicate Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan’s claim that “they have no connections with Islamic State (Daesh).”
The terrorists reportedly spared those who could recite a verse or two from the Qur’an, described by the father of one of the survivors as “doing a background check on religion,” and apparently butchered the rest, most of them Italian and Japanese, with knives and machetes. That has generally been the method by which individual bloggers, free-thinkers, aid workers, priests, missionaries and various others have been put to death.
In many of those previous instances, large numbers of Bangladeshis have been motivated to protest against the savagery. This time the prime minister declared two days of national mourning. That’s all very well, but what Bangladesh really needs is a well-coordinated and preferably bipartisan — or at least non-partisan — effort to eradicate the cancer whose incidence and growth have thus far tended to spark denialism rather than an effective counter-offensive.
There are clearly lessons to be learned here for other Asian countries as Daesh partially shifts its focus beyond the Middle East following its military defeat in Fallujah. One can only hope they will not go unheeded.
Source: arabnews.com/node/949761/columns
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Funding Hezbollah Bothers Iranians
By Diana Moukalled
6 July 2016
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s recent statements about Iran’s funding of his party remind me of the slogans chanted in Tehran seven years ago. In 2009, Iranians not only chanted “death to the dictator” during their protests, but also slogans about freedom and living in dignity, including: “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon. I sacrifice my life for Iran.”
These protests marked Iranians’ first public rejection of their regime’s financial and military support of Hezbollah and Hamas. It is said that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was angered by these slogans. The protests were suppressed and many were killed, hundreds arrested and dozens executed. Social media networks were banned and journalism, particularly online, was strictly supervised.
Economic Woes
Nasrallah’s recent statement that “as long as Iran has money, we have money” reminds us of these protests. The issue of Iran’s generous funding of Hezbollah and other armed groups such as Hamas and those in Syria comes at a time when Iranians are suffering economically, and amid public fury over government officials’ huge salaries. It is difficult to place Nasrallah’s statements about massive Iranian funding outside that context
The issue of Iran’s generous funding of Hezbollah and other armed groups such as Hamas and those in Syria comes at a time when Iranians are suffering economically
Opposition figures inside and outside Iran have commented on the matter, as some have managed to bypass the ban on social networking sites. At this point, Nasrallah should stop bragging about Iranian generosity, particularly in light of the meager economic results so far from the nuclear deal.
Global companies have not headed to Tehran, and the world is still cautious about an economy controlled by security officials, and whose earnings are distributed among groups such as Hezbollah. Funding the party will keep Iran’s economy outside the natural economic cycle. Tehran will not be able to suppress protests against this, no matter how much the media is suffocated.
Source: english.alarabiya.net/en/views/2016/07/06/Funding-Hezbollah-bothers-Iranians.html
URL: https://newageislam.com/middle-east-press/bangladesh-admitting-presence-isis-new/d/107870