6 July 2016

The new terrorism in Bangladesh


The Dhaka siege All latest updates

A jihadist attack on a restaurant popular with foreigners may force the government to change its strategy Jul 2nd 2016 | Asia

THE Holey Artisan Bakery, an upscale café and restaurant overlooking a placid lake in Dhaka, was a foodie’s labour of love in a verdant corner of the chaotic capital. It offered French croissants and Manhattan-style brunches. But on the evening of July 1st, at the start of the Eid holiday week that marks the end of Ramadan, it turned into a place of terror. After Bangladeshi commandos recaptured the restaurant the following day, the scene might have been drawn from the Vietnam war—with shredded tropical greenery, armoured vehicles and 28 dead bodies, many of them expatriates.

The gang of about seven attackers, armed with semi-automatic rifles and improvised grenades, stormed past the flimsily guarded gates and fought off an initial attempt by security forces to storm the restaurant. In the course of a 12-hour siege they slit the throats of anyone who could not recite verses from the Koran. At one table were eight Japanese customers, some of who were consultants for the Japanese overseas aid organisation. Only one is thought to have made it out alive. At another table Italian garment entrepreneurs suffered a similar fate. The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility and posted horrifying images of the dead during the siege.

It was the most shocking attack in a wave of Islamist violence that before this weekend had claimed the lives of around 50 people since 2013: non-Muslims, local bloggers and assorted non-conformists. The Bangladeshi authorities rounded up 14,000 people in a week last month, but the mass arrests did not prevent the latest atrocity.

It is still unclear which local organisation was involved. All eyes will turn to the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). Formed by veterans of the Afghan war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, it made a name for itself as a thuggish militia in northwest Bangladesh that terrorised leftists and bullied women into wearing the veil. It carried out a spate of ineffectual, but widespread bombings in 2005 and appears more recently to have allied itself with IS.

In public the Bangladeshi government refuses to accept that IS has taken root in the country. According to diplomatic sources, though, the government had privately conceded that IS had some form of presence in the country. In the days before the assault on Holey Bakery security had been heightened around parts of Dhaka; churches were warned to be vigilant.

Opponents of the government blame the drift to authoritarianism by Bangladesh’s ruling party, the Awami League for provoking the Islamist backlash. It has overseen the blanket repression of opposition parties and other dissenters. The government prefers to blame the opposition—hence its reluctance to admit to the presence of IS. The carnage at the Holey Bakery should force a rethink of strategy.

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