JMB targets to kill high-ups

Abdullah Al-Tasnim

Detectives have arrested seven members of Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, including its acting chief at Ashulia, who were allegedly plotting to attack VVIPs to get local and international attention.
Following up intelligence, the law enforcers raided Landing Port Station area by the Turag and made the arrests around 1:00pm Thursday.
The seven are acting JMB chief Abdullah Al-Tasnim Nahid, 29, Md Naim Ali, 28, Md Sikander Ali Noki, 25, Mahmud ibne Basher, 23, Md Masud Billah, 26, Fuad Hasan, 18 and Ali Ahmed, 24.
The arrestees were paraded before the media at Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s public relations office yesterday.
At the briefing, officials talked about the re-emergence of the banned Islamist outfit. They said some JMB operatives had communicated with the Islamic State (IS) leaders and were planning to go to Iraq and Syria and fight there.
During the raid, the detectives also recovered 10 kilogrammes of gel-mixed chemicals, four bronze idols and some books and leaflets on militancy.
In preliminary interrogation, the arrestees told investigators they were preparing to attack the motorcades of VIPs and some other important people with firearms and explosives.

“Following online contacts, JMB has been recruiting jihadists [fighters] to join IS,” a senior official of the Detective Branch of police told The Daily Star.
JMB acting chief Nahid, who got out earlier this year from prison, was appointed acting chief of the outfit by JMB’s ameer Saidur Rahman, now in Kashimpur Jail, the DB official said.
Nahid with the help of other fellow fugitives started reviving the outfit by recruiting members, including women, gathering firearms and ammunition, and training the new recruits at a camp in Thanchi of Bandarban.
They were aiming to recruit private university students as part of their plan to reorganise the outfit and take it to the global stage.
“Like Ansarullah Bangladesh Team, a radical Islamist outfit that nurtures al-Qaeda’s ideology, JMB also formed an assassination team,” Joint Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Monirul Islam told The Daily Star.
“By carrying out attacks, they wanted to let everyone know about their presence in the country and inspire their leaders, operatives and followers and revive the outfit,” Monirul said at the briefing.
Some top JMB leaders, including condemned convicts Salahuddin Salehin, in-charge of JMB Sylhet-Mymensingh region, and Jahidul Islam alias “Boma Mizan”, an explosives expert, are reportedly staying in Bashirhat of West Bengal. They frequently enter Bangladesh and meet JMB men to plot operations, said investigators.
On February 23, JMB men ambushed a prison van carrying Salehin, Mizan and its Khulna divisional commander Mohammad Rakib Hasan Russell alias Hafez Mahmud at Trishal. Rakib was later arrested and killed in Rab shootout while the two managed to cross the border.
“They had plotted to carry out Trishal-style attack to snatch JMB boss Saidur Rahman,” Monirul claimed.
A senior police official, involved in counter-militancy, said some behind-bars JMB top bosses met each other in prison and at courts to plan revival of the outfit.
The official said Ansarullah Bangla Team’s “spiritual leader” Jasimuddin Rahmania and JMB ameer Saidur met at Kashimpur Jail. “During the last Eid, they held a congregation inside the jail. Some 200 inmates attended the event.”
Rahmania had given the sermon while Saidur conducted the prayers.
Like the acting JMB chief, many jailed militants are getting out and joining their outfits and the law enforcement agencies know little about it.
Monirul admitted that they did not know about the release of Nahid, elder brother Abdullah Al-Sohail who was sentenced to death for carrying out a bomb attack in Gazipur court on November 29, 2005.
Monirul also admitted to poor coordination among the law enforcement agencies. He claimed that JMB spread its network to the upazila level.
Most of the family members of Nahid are involved in militancy, said the senior police official, adding Noki was a student of electrical engineering at North South University and a suspect in Shahbagh activist Rajib murder case.
“He was not arrested at that time as his involvement in the killing could not be established,” explained Monirul, adding that Noki was bright and an expert on internet and information technology.
He said information regarding other JMB operatives and their connection with the IS would be known during further interrogation of the arrestees.
Investigators said top JMB leaders like Salehin, Mizan, Anwar Hossain Faruq, who had led the Trisha ambush, may replace Nahid to run the outfit.
Bashar is a student of Tourism and Hospitality Management Department of Dhaka University.
Some JMB men who escaped to Pakistan during the anti-militant drive in 2007-08 may also take the charge of JMB. One of them is Saidur’s son-in-law Javed Akhter, who lives in Karachi.
JMB came to the fore through its brutal operations and killing of people during the BNP-Jamaat regime in 2004-05. It lost strength when most of its top leaders, including Shaikh Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai, were executed in 2007.