[The
list includes three Bangladeshi expatriates — longtime residents of Canada , Australia and Japan — who have long been sought by the police
and suspected of setting up training and recruitment pipelines for the Islamic
State. A fourth man on the list vanished last year after telling his brother he
planned to fight for the Islamic State in Iraq , the police said.]
By Ellen Barry and Maher Sattar
A
police checkpoint along a road leading to the Holey Artisan Bakery,
the
site of a deadly attack this month in
Credit
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
|
But
a list of 10 high-value suspects released this month, after the harrowing siege
of a restaurant in Dhaka , tells another story.
The
list includes three Bangladeshi expatriates — longtime residents of Canada , Australia and Japan — who have long been sought by the police
and suspected of setting up training and recruitment pipelines for the Islamic
State. A fourth man on the list vanished last year after telling his brother he
planned to fight for the Islamic State in Iraq , the police said.
The
most talked-about of the suspects, Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, is believed by some
analysts to act as a coordinator of the Islamic State’s activities in Bangladesh and parts of northeast India . None of the suspects have been arrested
because some operated in countries with stronger legal protections, the police
said, and others have disappeared.
The
profiles of these men offer a snapshot of a militancy undergoing a
metamorphosis, as links develop between domestic and international terrorist
groups.
“It
is possible that they have become the link, the liaison between the local
militants and the transnational groups, particularly in providing strategic
guidance,” said Ali Riaz, a professor of politics and government at Illinois State University . “The question is, are there more like them
that we don’t know?”
Until
last fall, officials openly discussed fledgling efforts by a handful of Islamic
State recruiters to lure Bangladeshis to Turkey , and on to Iraq or Syria . They did not seem to pose an urgent problem
for Bangladesh : The number of recruits was not large, believed
to be several dozen, and officials had no inkling that they aspired to carry
out domestic attacks.
“We
have good intelligence about Islamic State supporters,” Monirul Islam, then the
joint commissioner of the Dhaka metropolitan police, said in an interview
last year. “They have confided that they want to go to Syria and participate in jihad. Not in Bangladesh . Their plan does not include anything like
they would kill anyone in Bangladesh .”
He
added, though, that “these boys, if they return, that is a potential threat all
over the world.”
After
that, the question of Islamic State involvement in attacks in Bangladesh became a matter of dispute. In September, the
United
States
warned the Bangladeshi authorities, based on intercepted communications, that
the Islamic State was preparing an attack on foreigners in Bangladesh . Shortly thereafter, two foreigners were
shot, and claims of responsibility began to appear on social media accounts
linked to the Islamic State.
Sheikh
Hasina, Bangladesh ’s prime minister, responded with skepticism
and mistrust, complaining that the United States had not shared any “actionable intelligence”
with Dhaka . There was little evidence of Islamic State
involvement beyond claims on social media, and investigators had traced dozens
of previous attacks to well-established domestic networks, including some that
had been active for decades.
Attributing
the attacks to the Islamic State, moreover, threatened the country’s all-important
garment industry, which depends on annual visits from Western buyers.
After
militants killed 22 people in a siege on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka this month, the government said the attack
was solely the handiwork of “homegrown” militants from Jama’atul Mujahedeen
Bangladesh, despite the fact that the perpetrators sent photos to an Islamic
State-linked private email account during the operation.
Officials
softened their position as the investigation proceeded, acknowledging in recent
days that the attackers may have had foreign links, including to the Islamic
State.
Now
the police are seeking several suspected Islamic State operatives as possible
coordinators of domestic terrorism. Among the 10 high-priority suspects are
three whom Mr. Islam described last year as Islamic State recruiters.
They
are Mr. Chowdhury, who is thought to have returned to Bangladesh from Canada in 2013; Mohammad Saifullah Ojaki, a
professor of business administration at a university in Japan ; and Abu Terek Mohammad Tajuddin Kausar, who
has lived in Australia for a decade.
A
senior intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because
he was not authorized to speak, said the men being sought acted as contact
points between militants inside Bangladesh and organizers outside the country.
The
official said that two to three dozen fighters had returned from Syria and were serving as operatives in Bangladesh . Others, the official said, had returned
after receiving training in Turkey , and a third group may be training within Bangladesh ’s borders.
Investigators
are most interested in apprehending Mr. Chowdhury, who was identified in The
Daily Star, the country’s most popular English-language newspaper, as the
leader of Bangladeshi militants aligned with the Islamic State. If that is true,
he is the man interviewed under an assumed name in the Islamic State’s English-language
magazine, Dabiq, promising to stage bloody attacks in India , “with the help of the existing local
mujahedeen.”
“Our
soldiers are presently sharpening their knives to slaughter the atheist, the
mockers of the prophet and every other apostate in the region,” the man said in
the interview.
Mr.
Chowdhury left Windsor , Ontario , for Bangladesh in 2013 or some time after, at the same time
as two friends who the police suspected of trying to reach Syria to fight, said Amarnath Amarasingam, a
fellow at George Washington University ’s Program on Extremism, who tracks jihadist
fighters from the West.
Before
he left Canada , Mr. Chowdhury had complained to
acquaintances of harassment from law enforcement, and his radical beliefs were
criticized by leaders in his mosque. Acquaintances described Mr. Chowdhury as
“a nerdy kid who no one would have ever thought to take on a leadership role of
any kind,” Mr. Amarasingam said.
Another
suspect, Mr. Ojaki, has lived in Japan for many years. Born into a modest Hindu
family in central Bangladesh , he earned a scholarship and eventually
taught business administration at a university in Kyoto .
While
living there, he underwent a transformation, changing his name and converting
to Islam, said his father, Janardan Debnath. Mr. Debnath said the family was
staggered by the news of his conversion.
“When
I understood, it was like I couldn’t breathe,” he said. “I was completely
stunned to see the beard. We’re Hindu people, our son’s come back with this
beard. The neighbors were gossiping about it.”
He
had heard from reporters that his son was suspected of participating in a
terrorist network, he said.
“I
can’t understand what’s happening at all,” he said, breaking into
uncontrollable sobs.
Other
suspects, too, have fallen out of touch with their families.
Nazibullah
Ansari, who had been sent to study in Malaysia, sent his brother a farewell
message in January 2015 saying, “I have come to Iraq to join IS, I will not be
in touch with you anymore, and won’t be coming back,” said Abul Kalam, the
officer in charge at the police station in Chittagong, where a missing-persons
report was filed this month.
Junnun
Sikder, previously a computer science student at one of Dhaka ’s elite private universities, was arrested
in 2013 on suspicion of serving as a recruiter for a domestic jihadist group, the
Ansarullah Bangla Team. Released on bail, he left the country for Malaysia , and has since dropped out of contact.
Another,
A.T.M. Tajuddin Kausar, had left Bangladesh in 2006 to study computer science at the University of New South Wales in Australia , said his mother, Tahera Begum. He fell out
of touch in 2013, calling once every few months. “I never thought he would be
capable of being a terrorist,” she said. “I still don’t believe it.”
Zayadul
Ahsan Pintu, a journalist who has published widely on the country’s militant
networks, said that apprehending the 10 suspects would allow the police to
“identify the linkage, internal and external.”
Mr.
Chowdhury, in particular, he said, “is the connection from Bangladesh to Syria .”
Follow
Ellen Barry on Twitter @EllenBarryNYT.
Ellen
Barry reported from New
Delhi , and
Maher Sattar from Dhaka , Bangladesh .