SUMMARY
Amidst a recent upsurge in Islamist militancy in Bangladesh, the Islamic State (IS) was able to establish presence in the country after remnants of the largely defunct Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) pledged allegiance to it. In late 2015, IS affirmed the pledges made by Bangladeshi militants, but did not declare a formal Wilayah in the Bengal. However, in 2016 Abu Ibrahim al-Hanifa (believed to have been Tamim Chowdhury, a Canadian citizen) was declared the IS Emir in the Bengal.
After a wave of killings in 2016 of religious minorities and secular bloggers and activists, as well as the renowned attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka on July 1, the government initiated a crackdown against IS, pushing the conflict over 25 battle-related deaths for the first time. Striking several hard blows to the IS insurgency in the country, Bangladeshi security forces killed many militants, including Abu Ibrahim al-Hanifa/ Tamim Chowdhury. In 2017, Bangladeshi IS members were involved in a number of violent encounters with police and the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) as the latter was conducting raids on suspected militant hideouts. Approaching mid-2017, Islamist militant activity had subsided considerably following government crackdowns. Since 2017, very few clashes between IS militants and the government have been reported and the conflict did not reach the 25 battle-related deaths threshold.
IN DEPTH
Background to the conflict
The Bangladeshi IS cell emerged from the remnants of another Bangladeshi Islamist organization, the JMB. Following a vigorous government crackdown in 2007, the JMB had been almost completely decimated, and most of its top leaders were executed. However, Islamist sentiments regained traction in Bangladesh with the emergence of the “Shahbagh” protest movement in 2013. Shahbagh involved mainly moderate and secular Bangladeshis demanding harsher punishment of Islamists that cooperated with the military junta in the purging of nationalists during the 1971 liberation war; the movement also demanded persecution of the leaders of Jamaat-e Islami (JeI), Bangladesh’s largest politico-religious party. In response to the Shahbagh movement, Bangladeshi Islamists organized themselves to counteract the emerging secularist tendencies. It was amid these tensions that the remnants of Bangladesh’s largely defunct extremist groups began to reorganize themselves. However, militant activity remained minimal through 2013 and 2014.
While some Bangladeshi militants, such as those of Ansar-ul Islam/Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), chose to affiliate themselves with al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), many chose to pursue affiliation to the Islamic State (IS). In October 2014, Bangladeshi militants suspected of being members of the little known militant group Jund al-Tawheed wal Khilafah (JTK) pledged their support to IS. In the 12th issue of the magazine “Dabiq”, published on 18 November 2015, IS confirmed that militants in Bangladesh, including former members of JMB, had pledged their allegiance to IS; the group also stated that the “Bengal” (comprising India’s West Bengal province and Bangladesh) was an important area for future operations and expansion. In the spring of 2016, a man calling himself “Abu Ibrahim al-Hanifa” was presented as the IS “Emir” (commander) in the Bangladesh in the Dabiq magazine. In the same Dabiq issue, al-Hanifa also presented his vision for future IS activity in the Bengal; he primarily stressed the importance of a strong IS base in Bangladesh for carrying out attacks against India, which would be caught between militants in the Bengal and “Wilayah Khurasan” (the Afghanistan-Pakistan province).
Prior to al-Hanifa’s appointment as the Emir in the Bengal, IS had conducted a vigaorous propaganda campaign in order to attract potential militants in Bangladesh. IS had also encouraged Bangladeshi citizens to carry out crude attacks against foreigners and state symbols. In order to boost IS recruitment in the country, al-Hanifa issued a statement that said “hasten to pledge allegiance to the Khalīfah of the Muslims and join the ranks of the Khilāfah’s soldiers”. Unlike the JMB, which had primarily utilized Madrassas (Islamic educational centres) to recruit members from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, al-Hanifa’s cell managed to attract support primarily from men of middle- or upper-class background. Furthermore, many of the new recruits were well-exposed to English-language education and modern technology.
Emergence of IS activities in Bangladesh and the Holey Artisan Bakery attack
The first attack claimed by IS in Bangladesh was the murder of Italian citizen Cesare Tavella on 28 September 2015 (see IS – Civilians). This was followed by a series of small attacks, mainly targeting secular Bangladeshis, such as bloggers and other activists, or members of religious minority groups. The attacks were relatively unsophisticated, and mainly consisted of knife or gun attacks against lone civilians or police officers. It is also likely that several IS members were killed by Bangladeshi security forces in late 2015 and in the first half of 2016; however, the secrecy surrounding anti-terror operations in Bangladesh made it impossible to confirm the exact allegiance of the slain militants.
The by far most high-profile IS attack in Bangladesh occurred on 1 July 2016, when at least six armed militants stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s Gulshan neighborhood. The attack on the bakery evolved into a hostage situation that eventually resulted in the death of 20 civilians, mostly foreigners; six militants and two members of the Bangladeshi security forces were also killed in the operation launched to rescue the remaining hostages. Just six days after the bakery attack, on 7 July, IS militants attack the Eid congregation in Sholakia; this attack led to the death of two police officers, one civilian, and one militant.
Group Controversy and Government Crackdown
In the aftermath of the bakery attack in Dhaka and Eid attack in Sholakia, the Government of Bangladesh initiated an intensive crackdown against the militants responsible for the attack. However, the Bangladeshi government denied that those responsible had connections to any international organization, such as IS. Instead, the official standpoint was that the attacks were perpetrated by an entirely domestic group, which was labeled “Neo JMB” by the government. In fact, the exact nature of the “Neo JMB’s” allegiances has not been possible to establish. For example, the group’s leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hanifa, was presented as the IS Emir in the Bengal region in the IS propaganda outlets Dabiq and Amaq in 2016. However, unlike in many other places, such as Sinai and West Africa, IS never formally established a Bengali “wilayah” (province). As such, it is possible to question the authenticity of the Bangladeshi IS cell, as it still at the end of 2017 had not obtained official “wilayah” recognition from IS central. However, it was also clear that IS had appointed a commander in the Bengal, and that the major propaganda outlets used by the group recognized attacks carried out by al-Hanifa’s militants.
Furthermore, the Government of Bangladesh was not incorrect in its claim that the Islamist militant activity in the country was primarily domestic. An overwhelming majority of the militants killed and arrested in connection to the Holey Artisan attack were Bangladeshi citizens. In general, there was no indication of foreign fighters travelling to Bangladesh to fight for IS, as has been seen in many other countries. The only confirmed, immediate foreign involvement in the Bangladeshi IS cell came via Tamim Chowdhury, a Canadian citizen of Bangladeshi origin. Chowdhury was a top leader of the group, and most sources agree that he was in fact Emir Abu Ibrahim al-Hanifa himself.
Following the attacks in early July, the Bangladeshi authorities launched a vigorous anti-terrorist operation to neutralize the militants responsible for the attacks. The security forces killed and arrested dozens of militants suspected of being involved in the attacks. In late August, Chowdhury/al-Hanifa was killed in a raid in Dhaka, and his deputy, known as “Murad”, was killed in September. As the anti-terror operation proceeded, the Bangladeshi authorities remained consistent with its previous claim, and maintained that the militants killed and arrested were not IS members, but part of “Neo JMB”. The anti-terror operation continued into 2017, and appeared to be largely successful; no major IS attacks occurred in 2017. Furthermore, the number of militants killed and arrested subsided considerably in mid-2017, which suggested that IS, at least temporarily, was significantly weakened in Bangladesh. Since 2017, very few clashes between IS militants and the government have been reported and the conflict did not reach the 25 battle-related deaths threshold.
