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Regional task force on anti-terrorism

State its terms of reference
A feature of the Awami League election manifesto, insofar as its foreign policy commitments are concerned, is to work towards forming a regional task force to address the issue of terrorism and militancy. This has also been reiterated on quite a few occasions by people in the government since the assumption of office by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Predictably, the opposition led by the BNP has come out against the idea on the perceived grounds that Ilie arrangement might impinge on the sovereignty of the country, apart from a wider strategic ramification should the said arrangement become a part of the global war on terror.
Admittedly, the spectre of extremism and terrorism in Bangladesh is not as intense as one finds in India or Pakistan or even Sri Lanka. But we cannot forget the fact that we had our 21 August 2004, where the senior AL leadership was the target of the militants, and 17 August 2005 countrywide serial bombings, and thus one can understand the compulsion of the AL to take the terrorism issue very seriously, and initiate comprehensive measures to address the scourge.
One must also keep in mind that the phenomenon cannot be addressed by any one or two countries of the region because the problem straddles national boundaries and even more, there is the issue of regional networking and funding.
We feel that absence of a concrete proposal and the definition of the character of the proposed task force and its terms of reference has raised a degree of apprehension among certain quarters which should be allayed once the prime minister elaborated on her idea.
But the concept is not fundamentally new. There is a UN task force, set up in 2007, to coordinate with the member countries for an implementation of the UN strategy on terrorism enunciated in 2007. Near at home a similar arrangement has been put in place by BIMSTEC in the form of a joint working group to combat terrorism and transnational crime, in July 2004. And as disparate a group as Apec has also a counter terrorism task force; and generally speaking, their terms of reference include capacity building, identifying the loopholes, sharing intelligence and coordinating with other international counter terror forums.
As for Saarc there is the Saarc Convention on suppression of terrorism which we feel a task force would be able to opertionalise. And assistance from countries like the USA in enhancing capacity and technical expertise at the regional level would be helpful.
However, we feel that countries of the region must come to an agreement before any help is taken from outside powers.
We feel that the matter be considered dispassionately and suggest that the government enunciate the details of its proposal and make them public to put at rest any controversy over it.