Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB) Is an indigenous terrorist group founded in 1998. JMB is committed to establishing an Islamic state in Bangladesh through violence. The group’s main mission is to replace the government of Bangladesh with an Islamic state based on sharia law. Their first known attack was in May 2001. They’ve used many bombings to create fear amongst the Bangladeshi people. They became widely known when they used a synchronized, countrywide bomb assault on August 17, 2005. The group detonated approximately 460 bombs within a 30 minute period At 300 different locations in many districts in Bangladesh.
Also In 2005, They use suicide bombings to attack the countries judicial division such as court buildings, judges and government officials. They did this to intimidate authorities into releasing around 400 suspected JMB officials arrested after the August countrywide blasts. Shortly after these bombings authorities arrested more than 700 suspected members of JMB and another affiliate party. In March 2007, the Bangladeshi government executed a number of JMB leaders including the chief, Shaikh Abdur Rahman.
In May 2010,Authorities arrested the current leader of JMB, Maulana Saidur Rahman. In his home they found a Huge cache of weapons such as bomb making materials, firearms and ammunition. following leads from interrogating Rahman, police arrested many of the top leaders. One of them, commander Anwar Alam Revealed that JMB is operating according to a new ten-year master plan to achieve it’s goal of establishing an Islamic state in Bangladesh.
In 2011, Bangladesh’s elite counterterrorism agency, The rapid action battalion( RAB) claimed To have neutralized most of the JMB Organization and substantially reduced The possibility of another attack by the group. Yet the JMB threat to Bangladesh was not eliminated. Although the group was significantly weakened, there were rising concerns that they were attempting to reconstitute themselves. In January 2011 members of an alleged “JMB suicide squad” issue threats to assassinate Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and to blow up Chittagong Central jail and the court building unless authorities released detained JMB activists.
JMB to this day has been actively recruiting new members. They first only recruited members from Madrasas and Mosques but that became more difficult due to police monitoring. So they turned to the Internet and social media to recruit new members online, such as university students. JMB also appears to be increasingly recruiting from elite schools and universities. There operatives are also active in Europe. In September 2010, district police arrested a German expatriate known as Farouk Ahmed Aruj because he was linked to JMB. He had been living in Germany for the past two decades working as a manager of a fast food chain And was a core member of a Mosque in Germany.
Because they were so highly underestimated, in July 2016, JMB orchestrated one of the worst terrorist attacks in Bangladesh’s history. On the night of July 1, 2016, five militants took hostages an open fire on the Holey artisan bakery in a popular are of the Gulshan district. The Assailants entered the bakery with crude bombs, machetes, A salt rifles and pistols and took several dozen hostages which also included some foreign nationals. One attacker also had a sword. They then proceeded to open fire and detonate several bombs. They took everyone hostage. The gunman then separated the Muslims from the non-Muslims. The Muslims were given food and water while the non-Muslims were not.
It was a bloody situation but ended with an operation led by the first para commando Battalion of Bangladesh Army. 13 hostages were rescued and 22 civilians, five terrorists and two police officers were confirmed killed while 50 others, mostly police, were injured. Of the casualties, 9 were Italian citizens, 7 Japanese and A 19-year-old female student of the University of California, Berkeley of Indian nationality was also killed.
Responsibility of the attack was taken by the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). According to the New York Times, pictures of the bodies of the five men, released by Bangladeshi police, matched five photographs of the men released by ISIL. However, the home minister of Bangladesh stated that the perpetrators belong to JMB and were not affiliated with ISIL.
The issue of most concern to Western counterterrorism agencies was JMB members who became involved in international terrorist plots. The best example of this threat was Rajib karim. Rajib, an alleged member of JMB, lived in the United Kingdom and was employed as an information technology expert with British Airways. He and his brothers came under the influence of a Yemeni-American preacher Anwar al Aqlawi who was involved in a number of terrorist plots against United States. Aqlawi expressed to Rajib that an attack on the US was al-Qaida’s highest priority. Rajib was asked to get a package or person on board a flight heading to the US. 10 days later however British authorities arrested Rajib and he eventually received a 30 year prison sentence.
Looking back, it seemed as if JMB‘s strength and power had Been diminished after the arrest of its senior leaders but it was foolish of Bangladeshi authorities to assume that the group was neutralized. As The case of Rajib Karim demonstrates, there’s Also a huge risk of radicalizeD members of JMB joining larger terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda.