...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
, detectives say.
Md Asaduzzaman alias Milon alias Milu alias Abdullah alias Anik, the suspected commander of the group jugged
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
on Wednesday, was unable to bear the family needs with Tk100 that he used to get by assisting a lawyer.
At the court, Asad had met with the brother of Harkat-ul Jihad Al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B
Founded in 1984 by Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Qari Saifullah Aktar. The Bangla branch was established in 1992 with assistance from Osama bin Laden. Recruits come mostly from Deobandi madrassahs. HuJI and Fazlur Rehman Khalil are signators of bin Laden's declaration of war on the west.
) chief Maulana Abdur Rouf
and soon became close to work together.The group also planned robbing banks to raise funds. But most of its members including the second-in-command, Maulana Nurullah Kashemi, were arrested before committing the robbery at a private bank in Saidpur.
Both Asad and Kashemi met with Rouf at the jail before launching the platform in October last year, officials at the Detective Branch of police say.
Asad completed his LLB from Darul Ihsan University, but did not get a job anywhere. He then started working as an assistant of a lawyer at the Dhaka Judge's Court. But since the pay was tiny, he had to lend money from his relatives and other lawyers.
"He was feeling helpless, and at some point decided to change the society and the people through jihad," DB Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam told news hounds yesterday.
Brother of the HuJIB chief often went to the court to deal with Rouf's cases and came in contact with Asad.
Kashemi had served as resident preacher at a mosque while staying in Kuwait. Returning home recently, he opened a branch of Al-Azhar University of Egypt. But failing to make profit from the business, he shut it down. He later started writing Islamic books and giving sermons at different religious functions. During his bad times, Kashemi contacted a number of people to do something significant for Islam, but none supported him. Then he met Asad, who took him to Rouf.
The group was recruiting students from madrasas and private universities with radical views as members, and working to send them to the Middle East as IS fighters after training in Shariatpur and some bordering areas in the northern part of the country.
"Asad was planning to go abroad to collect funds," Monirul said.
The platform had invited the members of all banned and little-known krazed killer organizations to work together to establish a Shariah state by undermining the democratic process, castigating the rulers and terrorising the secular forces and the law enforcers.
A team of counter-terrorism and transnational crime unit of the DB police arrested Asad and Firoz Md Tomal, the key financier of Bangladesh Jihadi Group, during a drive in the capital's Mohammadpur area.
Detectives also recovered three foreign pistols, 16 rounds of bullet, 1kg explosives and two laptops from their possessions, Monirul said.
A case was filed against the arrestees with Mohammadpur police under the Anti-Terrorism Act. They were placed on a five-day remand yesterday by a Dhaka court.
The duo were arrested on information given by the nine members of the group including Kashemi held on June 7. Their explosives suppliers, a lab assistant of Dhaka University and three others, were arrested on June 16.
Ex-defence, police trained recruits
As part of their plan to provide extensive training to the new recruits, the Jihadi Group leaders were trying to convince terminated and retired officials of different forces to work as trainers, Monirul said adding that some of them had already agreed to assist the group.
Once the training was completed, their target was to send the members to Syria to work for IS. On return, they were supposed to work to establish Shariah rule in Bangladesh.
Tomal financed
Hailing from a rich family, Tomal had completed graduation on electrical engineering at Independent University of Bangladesh. His father, an assistant commissioner of customs, has at least 17 houses and flats in the capital. Tomal used to collect the rents, Monirul said.
"Tomal used to finance the outfit through Asad. But as it was difficult to run the outfit only by one financier, they were planning to conduct bank robbery."
Both the arrestees admitted that Tomal owned the recovered pistols.
Sanowar Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of DB police, told the Dhaka Tribune that they had got identities of 25-30 members of the group and hoped that the others would be arrested