August 17, 2005

BANGLADESH BOMB BLASTS -MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

When around four hundred small bombs explode in 63 districts out of 64 districts of a country simulteneously it shows what kind of network the attackers possess (imagine 50 states out of 51 in US). The mostly hit city was the capital Dhaka with around 30 bombs explosions including key installation like the Zia International Airport, Supreme Court, Secretariat etc.

The casualties and injured numbers are so far incredibly much less (2 deaths and 150 hospitalized). The question may be why is that. The bombs were confirmed as small IEDs (Improvised explosive device) containing not much explosives. From the TV reports of the unexploded ones I have seen that each contained four batteries and some small devices and a switch attached to the bomb by red tape. Most probable the switch activated the delay device and it exploded sometime later allowing the carrier to leave it and flee away. The most remarkable thing of these bombs is that they contained wood saw dust instead of splinters. That is why there are fewer casualties although they were exploded at manned places. Actually many received minor wounds of saw dusts hitting the body with the power of explosion and went home after emergency medical attention. If these were loaded with more explosives and deadly splinters, we could have seen thousands of dead people.

That brings us to this question why would anyone try to create panic in this manner. This is unprecedented in this world. This is a total mockery of the country's internal security system as the attacks were at the key installations. It shows that using the right kinds of explosive they can destabilize Bangladesh. It is n planned attack on Bangladesh's existence. But do our intelligence know why?

The Arabic and Bengali leaflets as mentioned in my last post had names of the banned Islamic terrorist group Jaamyat-ul-Mujahideen (Assembly of Holy Warriors). They said the blasts were its "third call" to establish Islamic rule in the country.

"If ignored and (if) our people are arrested or persecuted, Jaamyat-ul-Mujahideen will take the counter-action."

Now the paradox is that the government is denying existence of Bangla Bhai, the spiritual leader of JMB since long and their actions against these extremists on international pressure was seen with different angle. Some comments by the ruling party lawmakers:

Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer and Industries Minister Matiur Rahman Nizami on July 22 last year said, "Bangla Bhai was created by some newspapers."

Now what would Nizami say? That these bombs were planted by Awami League, the main opposition party framing JMB? The home minister said they had some information of an imminent attack but they did not expect it to be this much extensive. I think he failed miserably in raising the alarm. Because if the people had this information earlier they could have protected themselves. We really do not require a bunch of incompetent people eating up our tax money. The RAB disposes of suspected criminals in the name of encounters, now will we see some of the Islamic terrorists nabbed according to the police killed in encounters? I guess not and the question is why?

The Bangladesh political arena is not so civilized. One of the major leaders of Awami League reacted first to the news of this biombing incident "now we have more issues to go against the government". They have already declared a general strike on 20th of August. Was there any strike after the London blasts? Oh I forgot that we were talking about civilized and uncivilized people here. Now amidst all the chaos the real perpetrators will still be at large. The Bangla Bhai will only exist in paper.

This is the time when we all ought be together against these terrorists irrespective of our political leaning for our national interest. Otherwise they just had their dress rehearsal. You have witnessed the might of our internal security. The main deadly attack will soon come with our pants down. The end to the story.

More news of the blasts.

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