Bangladesh: Islamists emboldened by Taliban win in Afghanistan

“Go ahead (Taliban), the future world is waiting for you to lead it,” S. Islam, a consumer from the northeastern Bangladeshi metropolis of Sylhet, wrote on the DW Bengali service’s Facebook web page.
Shek, one other Facebook consumer from the district of Sirajganj, considers the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul “a victory of Islam.” “I’m so happy to see the victory of Islam before my death. I was never that happy before in my entire life,” he wrote.
Thousands of customers have been incessantly posting feedback on social media to reward the Islamic fundamentalist group’s victory and denounce Western media retailers “for propagating” towards it.
Radicals prepared to hitch Taliban
Earlier this 12 months, police within the capital, Dhaka, arrested no less than 4 suspected Islamists who needed to journey to Afghanistan through India and Pakistan to hitch the Taliban.
They had been a part of a bunch of 10 individuals who had been looking for methods to grow to be members of the fundamentalist group. Two of them have reportedly already been in a position to be a part of the Taliban.

“We have got a lot of information from the arrested persons. But it’s not yet clear how many Islamists have moved from Bangladesh to Afghanistan to join the Taliban fighters,” Asaduzzaman Khan, the chief of the counterterrorism unit of Dhaka police, advised DW.
Meanwhile, Indian newspapers have reported that the nation’s border safety pressure is on alert alongside the India-Bangladesh border after the police chief of Dhaka claimed that a number of radical Bangladeshi youths had been trying to sneak into India to make their option to be a part of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
How apprehensive ought to Bangladesh be?
Islamic fundamentalists who had traveled from Bangladesh to Afghanistan within the Nineteen Seventies and 80s to battle alongside the Afghans towards the then Soviet Union later returned residence and shaped militant teams together with Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami (HuJIB) and Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
For years, such teams have actively tried to destabilize the nation by finishing up terror assaults.
Still, consultants say that Bangladesh needn’t fear any greater than different South Asian international locations following the brand new developments in Afghanistan.
“The regional impact of the Taliban rule will depend on how they behave and whether they backtrack from their promise not to let any terrorist organization use Afghanistan as its base,” Ali Riaz, a political science professor at Illinois State University, advised DW.
“Whether conflict ensues will also be a determining factor,” he stated, including: “Bangladesh should be cautious, but neither should it be overly concerned nor use this as a pretext to clamp down on legitimate detractors of the government, falsely accusing them as Taliban sympathizers.”

Michael Kugelman, a South Asia professional on the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, echoed this opinion.
“Bangladesh’s problems with Islamist militancy aren’t as serious as they are in Pakistan, but given the presence of some groups, local and foreign, in the country, there should be some reason for concern,” he advised DW.
“The good news is that the Taliban themselves have no interest in stoking regional terrorism. Their concerns and interests are Afghanistan-focused,” he stated, including: “So, it’s not like the Taliban will encourage militants to carry out attacks outside Afghanistan. The problem is that militants will be inspired themselves to do so.”
Bangladesh’s ‘iron fist’ strategy may backfire
Bangladeshi police haven’t disclosed any info on what number of fundamentalists they’ve stored beneath surveillance, however they’ve acknowledged figuring out networks which have prior to now lured youths into becoming a member of the Taliban.
“We monitor the cyber world regularly and take action when we find someone who has been trying to become a militant,” Dhaka police chief Shafiqul Islam advised DW.
“We initially try to stop the person by informing their family about their intention to become a militant. If nothing works, we arrest the person to stop them from being radicalized,” he added.
Experts argue that whereas Bangladeshi police’s “iron fist” strategy to curbing militancy had gained some preliminary success, it may backfire in the long term.
“Bangladesh’s government has taken an iron fist approach to militancy. It’s cracked down on everyone, including innocents who had nothing to do with militancy,” Kugelman stated.
“So Dhaka’s counterterrorism achievements may be Pyrrhic victories: They killed terrorists and degraded their capacities, but they also may have laid the groundwork for future radicalizations of non-militant Islamists that resent how they’ve been treated by the state,” he stated.
Professor Riaz additionally says Dhaka’s actions towards militants have paid off solely within the quick run, by weakening terror teams like al-Qaeda and the “Islamic State” within the nation.
“But militancy does not grow in a vacuum; there are factors which allow it to thrive,” he stated, including: “On that count, the situation has not improved in Bangladesh. I am afraid that violent extremism has gained more support and sympathy within society than ever before.”