DHAKA, 17 November 2005 — Police in Bangladesh are hunting about 2,000 potential suicide bombers from three banned militant groups, a senior officer said yesterday as more threats were made.
He said many of the militants had trained in Afghanistan under the Taleban and might be preparing more attacks after two judges were killed in a bomb blast this week.
“They have assembled in the country to destabilize democracy,” said the police officer, who asked not to be named.
“All the country’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been ordered to put concerted efforts into capturing the members of the suicide squad,” he told Reuters.
Intelligence agencies have prepared a list of suspected members and leaders of the outlawed Jamaat-ul-Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB), Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Harkatul Jihad and others engaged in militant activities. Most of them returned from Afghanistan after taking part in the war against Soviet troops, said Home Ministry sources.
Bangladeshi police acknowledged for the first time the presence of home-grown potential suicide bombers after the two judges were killed on Monday by a bomb thrown at their car in the coastal town of Jhalakathi, 250 kilometers from Dhaka.
In a letter intercepted by police yesterday, militants threatened to kill another judge in northern Pabna district and an administrative official in the southwestern Paikgachha area. “Judges and their courts will be blown up if Qur’anic laws and Islamic administration are not implemented,” said the letter, which a police officer said was signed by Jamaat-ul-Mujahedeen, an outlawed militant group.
A wounded young man detained at Monday’s bomb scene told interrogators at a Dhaka hospital he was a member of the suicide squad of Jamaat-ul-Mujahedeen.
“I was assigned to kill and die,” the man, named Mamun, told a private television channel at the hospital where he is being treated for multiple injuries from the blast.
“I wished to be a martyr in my efforts to establish Shariah-based Islamic rule in Bangladesh,” he added.
Police have arrested 14 suspects, including Mamun’s elderly father and a younger brother, after the deadly blast. Local experts said the bomb that killed the judges was the most powerful locally made explosive device ever used in Bangladesh.
Police said a 2,000-strong “suicide squad” was drawn from members of Jamaat-ul-Mujahedeen and two other banned groups, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh and Harkatul Jihad.
“We are determined to find each member of the suicide squad, especially those who have returned from Afghanistan,” Inspector General of Police Abdul Quayyum told reporters late on Tuesday.
Bangladesh has been hit this year by a series of bombings blamed on militants.
Bombs exploded in three district courts outside Dhaka on Oct. 3, killing two people and wounding more than a dozen, while 500 small bombs went off across the country on Aug. 17, killing two people and wounding about 100.
A visiting British minister told the Bangladeshi home minister that militants were encouraged because those behind the previous bombings had yet to be punished.
