Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)-Anti-terrorist detectives in Bangladesh believe they have uncovered an Islamic State recruitment cell led by a London-based man operating from the country’s capital, Dhaka.
Police are searching for a man known as ’Abu Hamden’, a suspected British Islamist whose name was given to detectives by seven terrorist suspects who were questioned recently, reports The Telegraph.
Two militants believed to have been recruited by Hamden to fight in Syria were arrested earlier this week and another suspected IS recruiter was seized in a raid on Thursday.
Their search for ’Abu Hamden’ is focusing on the capital and in Habiganj district in the Sylhet hill region where they believe he, like many British Bangladeshis, has family ties.
Police said they believe he has been recruiting volunteers in both areas.
It is not known whether ’Hamden’ is his real name or a nom de guerre.
A 24 year old East London man of Bangladeshi origin, known as ’Ibn Hamden al-Bengali’, is believed to have joined ISIS in Syria earlier this year.
Detectives involved in the search said they learned of Hamden’s role when they arrested seven members of a small militant group known as Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
One of the men arrested, Sikander Ali Alisa Noky, 25, was found to have been in contact with Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, the 21-year-old student arrested in New York after his failed attempt to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank.
Two of Hamden’s alleged recruits were arrested on Wednesday and identified as Fazle Elahi Tanzil, 24, and Asif Adnan, 26, who had been preparing to travel to Syria via Turkey.
One was described as the son of a former judge and the other of a senior civil servant. Police said they had met their British Isil recruiter in April this year at a mosque in Dhaka and also at a Muslim shrine in Sylhet.
They had planned to pose as followers of the Tabligh Jamaat, a moderate Islamic discipline, when they arrived in Turkey.
A third man arrested in a raid in the capital on Thursday was also described as a recruiter for Isil who had been collaborating with a “Bangladesh expatriate who is financially affluent”, according to Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of Dhaka’s Metropolitan Police.
The ’expatriate’, who detectives later told The Telegraph was, ’Abu Hamden’ was a “foreign recruiter who fought against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad” and was in Dhaka “to recruit such fighters”.
His colleague, deputy commissioner Sheikh Nazmul Alam, confirmed police were searching for “a Bangladesh origin British citizen active in greater Sylhet region to mobilise youth for the recent militant activities”.
“We hope we would be able to catch him very soon,” he added.
Abdur Rob Khan, professor of international university at Dhaka’s North South University, said he believed British Bangladeshis and those in Bangladesh were radicalizing one another.
“Bangladeshis may have a different mentality from expatriate Bangladeshis in the UK, but things are changing, people are getting radicalized, indoctrinated and the internet plays a big role in this”, he said.
BBN/ANS-27Sept14-7:50pm (BST)