A recent country report on terrorism by the US Department of State has said that the fallen Awami League government had conflated political opposition with terrorism while pursuing rigorous counterterrorism measures in 2023.
The report published on the website of the Department of State on Thursday (December 12) provided an overview on the terrorism situation in Bangladesh in 2023.
It noted that Bangladesh had no reported instances of transnational terrorist violence in 2023 as authorities continued to pursue militants rigorously, particularly al-Qa'ida-affiliated groups, Ansarullah Bangla Team (Ansar al-Islam) and ISIS-affiliated Neo-Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (Neo-JMB).
The police units, who received training from the US, arrested dozens of terrorist suspects. However, the government frequently conflated political opposition with "terrorism," and some elements of the security forces allegedly have conducted extrajudicial killings and committed other human rights violations.
In May, an attack the government attributed to ethnic separatist militants of the Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF) killed two soldiers in the Chittagong Hill Tracts area. Another soldier was killed in a similar attack in March.
Separately, the authorities alleged the KNF provided a training safe haven in the remote hills to a new al-Qa'ida-inspired group, Jama'atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya (JAHS), beginning in 2022. Authorities said they had substantially disrupted JAHS by early 2023 and announced the arrest of the group's alleged emir in July. The group conducted no known attacks in 2023.
Meanwhile, two convicted terrorists involved in the 2015 murder of publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan remained at large after escaping custody during a November 2022 attack in Dhaka.
The government continued using the Anti-terrorism Act of 2009 to arrest and detain suspects. The government revised the controversial 2018 Digital Security Act, renamed the Cyber Security Act (CSA), which gives police modest additional authorities against potential terrorist activity online.
Domestic and international critics asserted, however, that the CSA retained troublesome provisions that allow law enforcement and private citizens to target, harass, and arrest perceived government critics and other members of civil society for exercising freedom of expression.
The Counterterrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), the Anti-terrorism Unit (ATU) of the police, and the para-military Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the last of which was sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act sanctions program in 2021 for serious human rights abuse, continued raids against and arrests of suspected terrorists.
Throughout the year, Bangladeshi law enforcement and the RAB arrested 163 people and filed 55 cases.
Bangladesh cooperated with the US to strengthen its internal security and response to terrorism. The US government provided various forms of assistance to DMP/CTTC, the ATU, and metropolitan police units in Chattogram, Rajshahi, and Sylhet.
The US also provided training to Antiterrorism Tribunal (ATT) judges and included prosecutors and police in courses on handling evidence, conducting investigations, and prosecuting terrorism and terrorist financing cases. The US office of defense cooperation continues ongoing counter-IED and explosive ordnance disposal programs with Bangladesh armed forces.
It also noted that Bangladesh is a member of the Asia-Pacific group on money laundering, and its financial intelligence unit is a member of the Egmont Group. There were no significant changes in 2023.
Noting that Bangladesh is host to nearly one million Rohingya refugees, the report mentioned though violence in the camps remained a concern and Bangladeshi officials publicly highlighted the potential for refugee radicalization to increase terrorist group recruitment and violence, no information emerged about terrorist threats from the camps in 2023.? Government officers often refer to gang violence in the camps as terrorism.
