Ansarullah Bangla Team has decided to attack small targets at regular intervals and, if possible, the militant group wants to kill one person per month.
Activists of the party have been directed to attack persons they consider to be anti-Islamic.
High officials, supervising anti-militant activities, said the detained members of the Ansarullah Bangla Team revealed this information during police interrogation.
The officials said Ansarullah had selected certain persons they considered anti-Islamic, as their targets.
The militants want to kill them one by one.
Members of the law enforcement agencies feel that the militant group was involved in the killings of blogger and writer Avijit Roy in Dhaka in February, Oyasiqur in March and Ananta Bijoy in May in Sylhet.
The law enforcers assumed that the militant group failed to attack its target in April and were under pressure as members of law enforcement agencies intensified their drives after the militant outfit robbed a bank in Ashulia, killing nine people.
Law enforcing agencies detained many of the Ansarullah militants during those drives.
The militant group first conducted its operation in 2013, for anti-Islamic writings.
The militant group also killed blogger Rajiv Haidar that year.
Later on 30 September 2014, Ansarullah militants reportedly killed a private university student Ashraful Alam in Savar and also are believed to be responsible for the killing of Rajshahi University professor Shafiul Alam on 15 November.
An official of Detective Brach of police (DB), who was present during interrogations of the recently detained members of Ansarullah, said the militant group is concentrating on killing as many people they can.
They have decided to also outsource the killings to other people of the same ilk.
Joint commissioner (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Monirul Islam told Prothom Alo that the Ansarullah was no longer an individual organisation.
It is being used as a ‘platform’ for the extremists of this generation. They are following the ideology and strategies of al-Qaeda from inception.
They used to follow Anwar al-Awlaki, late Yemeni leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Ansarullah was affiliated with the al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (IQIS) after the terrorist outfit was launched in the area.
Now Alsarullah follows al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Several intelligence officials, who monitor Ansarullah Bangla team, said the group chief Mufti Jasimuddin Rahmani and several other members were arrested in 2013.
In 2014, the militants were not active and were regrouping. They became again from December last year.
They could organise themselves in small groups.
All the groups have individual names but most members of the small groups are not informed about it.
A member comes to know about the group for which he/she is working for after proving a certain level of their credibility in the party.
Interrogations revealed that many members of such small groups knew nothing about the organisation after a certain stage. One group robbing a bank to raise funds would not be known by the other groups. That is why early information about them could not be gathered often.
Ansarullah was considered to be the biggest threat among the militant groups in the country. The members of this group are educated, smart, and belonged to established families of the society.
An intelligence agency has a list of 25 members of this group.
Of the 25, around 18 are from different cadet colleges. Some of them were arrested recently.
Ansarullah Bangla Team, formed in 2007, first came into the limelight in 2013 by killing blogger Rajiv Haider.
The government banned the organisation on 25 May this year.
Ansarullah is considered the fourth generation militant organisation of the country.
The first generation militant organisation Harkatul Jihad Al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJi-B) was formed in the late eighties.
Local mujaheeds who participated in the Afghan war against Russia formed the organisation.
Then Jamatul Mujaheedin Bangladesh (JMB) was formed after a decade.
International organisation Hizbut Tahrir began its operations in the country in the 21st century.
It is considered the third generation militant group in Bangladesh.
The government banned Hizbut Tahrir as a militant organisation on 10 October, 2009.
Hizbut Tahrir, however, is seemingly still operative.
The organisation sends press releases to media houses after holding small processions in front of different mosques almost every Friday.
Source: Prothom Alo
