Militants turning to apps
FROM PAGE 1
Some of these groups have over 500 members or followers, who are possibly looking for an opportunity to stage a subversive act, they add.
“Our research suggests that only 10 percent of the militants on bail have been de-radicalised ... The militants on bail are supposed to appear at the respective police stations every month. We do not have the capacity to monitor each of them, but we are trying our best,” says CTTC chief Asaduzzaman.
In the Middle East, Al Hafs Al Koraisi took IS leadership on August 3 last year. In separate messages in September last year and on January 7 this year, Hafs asked all the IS-inspired militants to organise and conduct subversive activities, officers say.
Subsequently, there have been a number of IS attacks killing hundreds in Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Syria, and Afghanistan, they add.
Inspired by the messages, Neo JMB members who have been inactive since the countrywide anti-militancy drive in 2016 and 2017 are beginning to organise.
According to law enforcers, 69 militants, including top leaders, were killed in the raids over those two years.
Neo JMB was earlier found involved in the Holey Artisan café attack in Gulshan that left 22 people dead, including foreigners and two policemen.
After the Holey Artisan Cafe attack, CTTC arrested 200 suspected members of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), 128 of Neo JMB, 230 of Ansar Al Islam, 15 of Huji-B, 120 of Hizb ut-Tahrir, 41 of Imam Mahmuder Kafela, 18 of Jama’atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya, and 22 of other militant outfits.
“We are keeping an eye on the suspects now out on bail,” says SK Imran Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of the CTTC.
NEW LEADERSHIP
According to an intelligence report, the new Neo JMB chief Maulana Abu Bakar is believed to be hiding somewhere in the Middle East.
He spent a period in Afghanistan, and was earlier involved with Harkat Ul Jihad Al Islami Bangladesh, reads an intelligence report.
Bakar got the charge after Abul Abbas Al Bangali, also known as Mahadi Hasan Jon, was arrested in Turkey based on CTTC’s intelligence a year ago.
Bakar has tasked some of the followers to buy foreign firearms by collecting funds, says the report.
Besides, the outfit is planning to hack into the cable TV network in different parts of the country and “broadcast” content asking viewers to join it.
It also has plans to bring all its members under a single platform, form separate cells under a chain of command, and reduce its “gap” with other Islamist groups.
Rahmat Ullah Choudhury, deputy commissioner at CTTC unit, says, “There is a very thin line between the Islamist terrorist outfits like Neo JMB or Ansar Al Islam ABT and the so-called Islamist parties. The ideological spectrum of all Islamist parties overlap and they may come to a common platform in the near future.”
In its last attack, the outfit on May 17, 2021, exploded a strong IED in front of a police traffic control room in Narayanganj. The members are using Threema, Wickr Me, and Telegram for communication to avoid surveillance, the report reads.
CTTC unit chief Asaduzzaman said, “There is no specific threat. The extremists do not have the capacity to carry out an attack like the Holey Artisan. But they have many sympathisers and supporters online.”