Freeze frame from new ISIS video. Image credit: Dhaka Tribune
ISIS publication Dabiq says base in Bangladesh will launch guerilla attacks in India to "avenge the persecution on Muslims."
Hailing the July 1 Gulshan terror attack, international terrorist group Islamic State has now released a video calling for jihad in Bangladesh and threatening more attacks on “crusaders” and “crusader nations.”
The video message believed to be issued from Raqqa in Bangla was first found in an IS-affiliate website and then released on YouTube early Wednesday.
It comes as a follow-up to the dreadful attack on a Gulshan eatery in Dhaka last Friday that killed at least 22 people including 17 foreigners. The five others include two police officers. Police say six of the attackers were killed in “Operation Thunderbolt” carried out the next morning to end a 12-hour hostage crisis at O' Kitchen.
IS' Amaq news agency released the photos of five of their members several hours after the attack broke claiming responsibilities. Police, however, claim that most of the attackers were linked to local outlawed militant groups.
In the video, three of the speakers are of Bangladesh origin, but they could not be identified immediately.
One of them said they would not stop until establishing Shariah law all over the world. “The Jihad that has come to Bangladesh now has been promised by Prophet Mohammed,” he said.
“We will not stop killing the crusaders till then; we will win or die for our religion as martyrs and achieve shahadaat [martyrdom] … we don't have anything to lose.”
He termed the current form of democracy a shirk [deification or worship of anyone or anything other than Allah] or unforgivable crime.
“I want to ask you a question: how do you support this 'Shirk' notion of democracy? Don’t you know that it gives power to people to enforce law and have power whereas the power belongs to Alllah only? [according to the Qur'an]”
The second speaker labelled the government as kafir [non-believer].
“Since the govt has changed Allah’s law and has implied man-made law they are all 'kafirs' now. It is our religious duty to fight against it. Crusaders are killing innocents Muslims globally with planes and bomb attacks.
“So the Holey Artisan incident is our revenge to the lost blood of the hundreds and hundreds of Muslims who were killed,” he said.
The other speaker urged Muslim brothers and sisters to join the jihad saying it was what they had been dreaming of. “InshaAllah, Allah will accept our jihad.”
They all want Islamic rule
In its 14th edition of Dabiq magazine published on April 13, IS claimed that they have organisational base in Bangladesh (they term it Bengal), from where they have plans to attack on India and Myanmar to "avenge the persecution on Muslims."
“We believe the Shariah in Bengal won’t be achieved until the local Hindus are targeted in mass numbers,” said Sheikh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, the man leading the operations in Bangladesh, in an interview.
Bangladesh is referred to as “Bengal” throughout the interview and its members as “Soldiers of the Khalifah in Bengal.”
Abu Ibrahim said Bangladesh was important for global jihad because of its geographic position and proximity to India.
“Having a strong jihad base in Bengal will facilitate guerilla attacks inside India simultaneously from both sides [east and west],” he said in the interview.
Since September last year, IS has claimed responsibilities for at least 25 attacks killing foreigners, non-Muslim and non-Sunni preachers and police. They also launched bomb and gun attacks on Shia and Ahmadiyya mosques.
Meanwhile, Ansar Al Islam (believed to be outlawed group Ansarullah Bangla Team) which is representing al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in Bangladesh has claimed credit for 13 attacks since 2013 killing a dozen of war crimes trial campaigners, secular bloggers, writers, publishers and LGBT rights activists.
Police say another banned group Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh or JMB is also responsible for some recent murders and bomb attacks across the country. The outfit has been working in concert with other banned groups and IS with a view to establishing Islamic rule in the country by 2020 incorporating some parts of Myanmar and India, according to detectives. JMB joined the international jihadist platform in 2012.
On the other hand, two intelligence reports recently mentioned the name of banned international group Hizb ut-Tahrir for their involvement in the series of targeted killings, saying over 450 of its leaders and activists have remaind absconding after getting bail.
One of its members Ghulam Faizullah Fahim was caught by the locals last month while fleeing after hacking a Hindu college teacher in Madaripur. He was later killed in an alleged gunfight between his cohorts and the police.
The group, banned in 2009 for anti-state activities, called for the army to take over power and put them at the helm to establish Caliphate from an online political conference on September 4 last year.
In a video message on June 17, only two weeks before the Gulshan terror attack, Hizb ut-Tahrir urged the Muslims to join their Islamic revolution by uprooting the government terming it tyrant, corrupt and anti-Islam.
Republished with permission from Dhaka Tribune.