January 28, 2005 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
In August 2004, terrorists attacked an opposition rally using hand grenades and automatic weapons, killing Ivy Rehman and maiming several others. After much ado, the official investigation into that incident ended up nowhere. Insinuations were made, aspersions were cast, but no one was actually implicated.
Only now, another opposition leader has been assassinated in very similar circumstances; grenades being the weapons of choice. Rezwan’s desktop investigation had suggested that the grenades used in the August 2004 attack were of Chinese or Pakistani origin and were specially designed for covert operations.
In Razib’s view, the New York Times Magazine’s article on Bangladesh’s slide towards fundamentalism is alarmist. That may be so, but events in Bangladesh suggest that internecine politics is breeding a terrorist monster. Indeed, Bangladesh’s social fabric may be strong enough not to allow an overtly Taliban-like regime to come to power, but it is unable (or unwilling) to shake off a political combine that is influenced by radical Islamic ideology. Dangerous forces, such as those that just claimed the life of SAMS Kibria, hold sway in many parts of the country, with the state doing little to bring them under control. Even without reaching the Taliban-threshold, they already pose as much a threat to Bangladesh as they pose to its neighbours.
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