SUMMARY
JMB (Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, or Assembly of Holy Warriors in Bangladesh) was an armed group active in Bangladesh. JMB's primary goal was to replace the existing state of Bangladesh with an Islamic State based on Sharia law, which the group considered to be incompatible with a democratic system. Ideologically, the group drew inspiration from a wide range of jihadist and extremist Islamist groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Harkat-ul-Jihadal-Islami Bangladesh (HUJI-B). JMB also expressed staunch opposition against socialism, and sought to neutralize Bangladeshi left-wing groups such as the PBCP. After 2005, the JMB restructured its aims to establishing control and Islamic law in Bangladesh’s northwestern Rajshahi Division where it has maintained its traditional stronghold, inspired by the modus operandi of the Taleban movement in Afghanistan.
JMB was founded in 1998 by Shaikh Abdur Rahman, and was from the beginning closely associated with the Salafist movement Ahle Hadith Andolon Bangladesh (AHAB), a platform organization created in the mid-1980s intent on establishing Bangladesh as an Islamic State. AHAB was one of the largest funders of Islamist extremist activities in Bangladesh, and provided JMB with money used for recruitment and training purposes. Furthermore, AHAB indirectly supported JMB by establishing mosques and madrasas, where it contributed to the radicalization of societies at the district and local level; AHAB thus provided JMB with its main recruitment pool. JMB’s creation was closely linked to Rahman’s person, and he set up the JMB after returning from Pakistan in 1998, where he had received training from the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Rahman drew ideological inspiration from a wide range of Islamic interpretations, and the primary enemy of JMB was at this time the democracy movement in Bangladesh.
The JMB was led by an amir (commander) that was supported by a consultative decision-making council (Majlis-e Shura). The group’s founder and original leader was Shaikh Abdur Rahman, and the first consultative council consisted of six members who had studied with Rahman at an AHAB madrasa in Dhaka. Rahman’s younger brother Ataur Rahman Sunny joined JMB sometime during the early 2000s, and was appointed commander of the group’s military wing. Another prominent member of JMB was Siddiqul Islam (“Bangla Bhai”), who served as Rahman’s co-leader. It has also been suggested that the leader of AHAB, Asadullah Ghalib, had a central role in running JMB together with Rahman and Siddiqul Islam; in any case, Ghalib was a close ally of Rahman. Rahman, Siddiqul Islam, and the consultative council were captured by Bangladeshi authorities in 2006, and subsequently executed in 2007. Maulana Saidur Rahman (“Abu Zafar”) became the new amir in 2007; he was then arrested in 2010. Najmul (“Bhaigna Shahid”) was appointed military commander no later than 2009. Between 2007 and 2010, the consultative council was reformed at least three times with various members. It has not been possible to establish the leadership of the group after 2010.
JMB relied to a significant extent on family ties to recruit new members, and arranged marriages within the top leadership was utilized to ensure solidarity within the group. A large number of its members were also recruited in AHAB madrasas, and during da’wah (preaching) meetings. After 2005, JMB began to rely less on open da’wah meetings for recruitment to avoid infiltration, and began to rely more on its own four madrasas; the group also increased its efforts to recruit from elite schools and universities. At the height of its power in 2005, JMB had around 2000 fighters (or ehsar, “full-time” members) organized into nine regional operational commands, and 5000 part-time members (gayeri ehsar) that filled supportive functions; this number may however have been much higher. Following vigorous government crackdowns against the group, the JMB’s number of fighters was down to 250 divided into seven regional operational commands by 2010. All prospective fighters received organized physical and religious training; the weapons training was very similar to the one used by Islamist groups in Pakistan.
Prior to 2005, the main stronghold of the group was Rajshahi Division in northwestern Bangladesh, and it maintained bases in Naogan, Joypurhat, Natore, Rangpur, and Bogra districts. The JMB also utilized the southern districts of Chittagong, Jessore and Khulna for mobilization and fundraising in the early years of its existence. Following the crackdown in 2005, JMB regrouped in northwestern Bangladesh, Chittagong, and in India. JMB was well-endowed in terms of funding. For example, prior to the government crackdown in 2005, it would levy a form of tax from rural areas. Both before and after 2005, it also received considerable donations from its members, and from supporters working in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The group also relied on various forms of criminal activities, such as robberies and arms smuggling, to accumulate funds. Particularly after 2005, JMB utilized the hundi (otherwise known as hawala), a traditional way of transferring money central to the Bangladeshi remittance process, to raise funds; the group received help from banking officials to conduct these transfers.
JMB also had close – albeit confusing – links to an extremist “vigilante” organization called Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB, or “Awakened Muslim People of Bangladesh”), headed by JMB commander Siddiqul Islam. While JMJB maintained its own organizational structure – which closely mirrored JMB’ structure – it was described as a “public front” of JMB; other sources described it as a JMB “splinter”, “offshoot”, or “mass/popular base”. The point of contention was thus primarily the level of integration between the two groups. What was known with certainty was that the leadership structures of JMJB and JMB overlapped considerably, with the most obvious point of contact being Siddiqul Islam. However, also JMB leader Shaikh Abdur Rahman was part of JMJB’s consultative council; it was even suggested that Rahman was in fact the “senior” leader of JMJB. It also appears likely that the JMJB actively participated in violent activities orchestrated by the JMB, such as the high-profile bombings in 2005. Given this considerable overlap, the UCDP coded events involving JMJB – such as one-sided violence committed by the vigilante group - as part of any relevant JMB dyad.
JMB had strong ties to other Islamist extremist groups, such as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was the group’s most important external partner. For example, it was revealed in 2008 that JMB participated in a South Asian counterfeiting ring run by the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which generated funds to the group. JMB also has operational ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba, and to other militant organizations such as al-Muhajiroun, and the Harkat-ul-Jihadal-Islami Bangladesh (HUJI-B). A HUJI-B splinter known as the Tanjin-e-Tamiruddin (Tamiruddin faction) directly assisted JMB by conducting explosions in at least 22 districts of the 63 districts targeted in JMB’s high-profile bombings in 2005. JMB also utilized intimate ties to the Islamic Chatra Shabir (ICS) - the youth wing of the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami - to recruit members.
Some JMB commanders splintered from the group, and formed for example “Jadid al-Qaida” in 2007, and “Islam O Muslim” in 2009; the main motivations behind the splits were decisions by the JBM to temporarily refrain from violence, and allegations of financial corruption within the consultative council. In 2016, a previously unknown faction known as “Neo JMB” led by “Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanifa” - a nom de guerre that most likely belonged to Canadian citizen Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury – carried out a high-profile attack against a bakery in central Dhaka. Against denials from Bangladeshi authorities, most evidence indicate that this “Neo JMB” cell was in fact part of the Islamic State (IS). For more information about this faction, please consult the Bangladesh: Islamic State conflict page.
While JMB did not cease to exist entirely, the group was hard-hit by the executions of its entire original leadership in 2007. In general, JMB did not appear to have recovered from the brutal government crackdowns against it during 2005-2007, and the group’s activities subsided considerably after this. It should be noted that JMB was showing signs that it was attempting to reorganize itself towards the end of the 2010s; however, whether the group would re-emerge as a viable armed threat remained unclear as of 2018.
