US embassy cable - 05DHAKA1851

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DHAKA 001851 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NOFORN 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/20/2015 
TAGS: PTER, KISL, PGOV, PREL, BG, BG Terrorism 
SUBJECT: BDG INTEL BRIEFING ON ISLAMIST MILITANTS 
 
REF: DHAKA 0815 
 
Classified By: P/E Counselor D.C. McCullough, reason para 1.4 b, d. 
 
 1. (C/NF) On April 18, a three-man team headed by Brigadier 
Asif Chowdhury, Foreign Intelligence Bureau director of the 
military Director General Forces Intelligence (DGFI), 
presented a 30-minute Power Point briefing at the Embassy to 
Ambassador, P/E counselor, DATT, and RAO on the investigation 
of detained Islamist militant leader Assadullah al-Ghalib, 
director of the Arab Department at Rajshahi University, and 
two banned Islamist organizations (reftel).  A 20-minute 
q-and-a session followed. 
 
2. (C/NF) The DGFI officers made the following points: 
 
A) The Targets: Ghalib leads one of three factions, each with 
its own youth group, professing adherence to the Islamic 
orthodox Ahle Hadith sect.  His Ahle Hadith Andolan 
Bangladesh (AHAB) rejects "un-Islamic" practices like 
cultural events and programs aimed at empowering rural women. 
 AHAB spawned the two groups banned by the BDG on February 
23: the Jamaaat Mujahidin Bangladesh (JMB), which was created 
in 2002 as AHAB's secret military wing to fight anti-Islamic 
elements in general, and the Jagroto Muslim Janata Bangladesh 
(JMJB), which arose in April 2004 to counter 
communist/leftist influence and criminality in northwestern 
Bangladesh.  The latter group was led operationally by 
Siddiqar Rahman, more infamously known as Bangla Bhai, and 
spiritually by Abdur Rahman.  Ghalib is the supreme spiritual 
leader of JMB and JMJB according to detainees from both 
groups.  The ranks of JMB and JMJB are drawn almost 
exclusively from the Bangladeshi Ahle Hadith community, which 
DGFI estimates is as small as 50,000 persons.  (Note: Other 
estimates are as high as two million.) 
 
B) Funding: AHAB, JMB, and JMJB receive funds from extortion, 
donations, periodical subscriptions, the sale of cow hides 
during Id festivities, and alms.  A Kuwait-based NGO, the 
Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS), provided funding 
via "religion attaches" at the Kuwaiti and Saudi embassies in 
Dhaka to about 200 imams at Ahle Hadith mosques and 
madrassah.  (Note: According to MFA's Diplomatic List, the 
Saudi Embassy has a one-person "religion attache" office. 
There is no comparable listing for the Kuwait embassy.) 
 
C) Ghalib's Travels: Based on Ghalib's laptop, personal 
records, statements, and passports (except for the last one, 
which he claims he lost), between 1989-1999 he traveled for 
conferences or other meetings to India (Bihar), Kuwait, 
Nepal, Bahrain, and Pakistan.  In Kuwait, he met with a 
Salaafist government minister named Jasem al-Aum, who owns a 
company that puts out Salaafist publications.  Despite this 
regular travel abroad, Galib's interests and focus were 
primarily domestic. 
 
D) Fugitive Prizes: DGFI is very confident that Bangla Bhai 
and Abdur Rahman will be arrested very soon as the result of 
its monitoring of telephones, surveillance of key people and 
places, the activation of local police and paramilitary 
auxiliaries, and the posting of large rewards (the taka 
equivalent of 835 dollars for Rahman and 1670 dollars for 
Bangla Bhai).  Rahman is "one hundred times" more important 
than Bangla Bhai because he inspires extremists to action 
while Bangla Bhai is just a media-enhanced field commander. 
Bangla Bhai may have fled to India. 
 
E) Next Steps: After capturing Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai, 
the focus will shift to the operational commanders of JMB and 
JMJB, and then the arrest of JMB/JMJB activists.  There is no 
timeframe since Rahman and Bangla Bhai have yet to be caught. 
Because DGFI has been monitoring these two groups for up to 
one year, it already has a list of activists.  However, 
arresting them "pre-emptively" could be politically 
problematic since the case against their superiors has yet to 
be clearly established.  When there is (unspecified) 
political pressure on the investigation, DGFI finds another 
way to proceed. 
 
F) Positive Impact: Since DGFI arrested Ghalib and four top 
commanders on February 23, there has been a big drop in 
subversive activity across Bangladesh.  The BDG is committed 
to building a strong legal case against Ghalib and the others 
to ensure long-term convictions.  "We want him at least 14 
years to let this movement die down."  Current laws, dating 
from colonial times, focus on anti-state actions, need to be 
updated to recognize terrorism and ideologically-driven 
violence.  There are three cases against Ghalib for allegedly 
instigating IED attacks.  However, he insists to 
interrogators that he called only for rhetorical jihad, not 
actual violence, and this distinction is enough to hamper 
prosecution without additional evidence. 
 
G) Releases: "Some" detainees have been released because 
police, in response to the Home Ministry's "tough" message to 
crack down on extremists, arrested them simply because they 
were found at several madrassahs.  "We stopped it the next 
day."  (Note: DGFI claimed not to have total arrest or 
release numbers.  Local media in late February reported about 
two dozen arrests; in early April, media reports conflicted 
on whether any of the detainees had been released.) 
 
H) Voters: At the 2001 general election, about 60 percent of 
AHAB members voted for BNP and 40 percent voted for AL. 
Jamaat Islami got zero.  (Note: Others observers believe that 
JI does very well with Ahle Hadith voters, a potential 
embarrassment for the BDG in this context since JI is part of 
the government.) 
 
I) Arsenal: No weapons have been recovered, only locally-made 
explosive powder used for IEDs. 
 
J) RIHS: At DGFI direction, the BDG's NGO Affairs Bureau has 
frozen RIHS's access to foreign funds and is investigating 
how prior foreign funds were spent to see if a case can be 
built to ban RIHS.  (On April 20, local media reported that 
Dipu Sarwar, a journalist who wrote a series of articles on 
RIHS, received an anonymous phone call saying he would be 
killed if his articles led to a halt of the NGOs activities.) 
 
 
3. (C/NF) Comment: One month ago, Mission elements received 
virtually the same briefing, including the predictions of 
Bangla Bhai's and Rahman's imminent capture.  The DGFI sought 
to convince that the BDG is committed to pursuing this 
"unprecedented operation" against Ghalib and the extremists, 
that JMB/JMJB are relatively unsophisticated in terms of 
weapons and external contacts, that the DGFI is fully mindful 
of human rights, and that Bangladeshis are overwhelmingly 
moderate people. 
THOMAS