Grief and terror brought by Islamic militants has struck yet another country — this time Bangladesh, where reports say some 300 explosions occured simultaneously throughout the nation including in its capital city.The BBC reports:
At least two people have been killed and 50 others injured in a series of small bomb blasts across Bangladesh.
Officials say more than 300 explosions took place simultaneously in 50 cities and towns across the country including the capital Dhaka.
An outlawed Islamic group, Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, says it carried out the attacks.
Police say that more than 50 people have been arrested in connection with the blasts.
Reports say many of the injured have been admitted to local hospitals, although most of the injuries are not life-threatening.
The blasts caused panic across many cities leading to massive traffic jams. Reports say parents rushed to bring their children home from school.
The Bangladesh-based blog Third World View gives this info:
The local TV and radio channels are covering the situation but I am unable to access them at the moment. As we reached office the traffic looked normal. This site also does not report any unusual activities. The information in the internet are not much.
It is the total failure of this government whose security forces were overpowered by the synchronized attack in many locations showing the might they possess. The government and the political parties politicized the investigations of the previous bomb blasts and hence let the perpetrators running lose. They still don’t have a clue who did it. Now the general Bangladeshis are paying for it. Its time to tackle them with a cool mind. No need to panic which they want to inflict upon us. ‘We are not afraid’ – this is the message we should send to those bastards.
Update: One injured rickshaw-puller dies. The poor man did not have anything to do with ‘Bush’, ‘Blair’, ‘jihad’ or any other world affair. Yet some freak minds want to establish anarchy at the expense of these people.
And the bombs didn’t go off at just any, old time. They went off in crowded areas and around the same time, between 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. Many of them targeted government buildings.
What does this mean for us here in the West? One of the patterns of the terrorism of these Islamic groups is the use of simultaneous acts. It used to be that one terror act was sufficient. But the new modus operendi is to have several Death Events going on at once. This again underlines the importance of comprehensive intelligence gathering and the need for governments to infilitrate terrorist groups.
Clearly these groups and particularly Al Qaeda have a larger goal that goes beyond merely exploding bombs to hear the noise. Indeed, note this Reuters report:
Bangladesh, which has been hit by a number of unexplained bombings over the past two years, has never experienced anything quite like this before.
Authorities issued security alerts all over the country but were unable to identify the bombers immediately, though police said dozens of suspects had been detained.
The blasts did not cause major damage anywhere and appeared to be aimed at spreading fear and panic, police said.
Bangladesh, the world’s third-most populous Moslem country, has a long history of political violence, labour strife and gang warfare.
But Wednesday’s blasts turned the focus on the presence of Islamic militants, who have been blamed in the past for bomb explosions at religious shrines and rallies.
Jaamat-ul-Mujahideen (Assembly of Holy Warriors) said the blasts were its “third call” to establish Islamic rule in the country.
“If ignored and (if) our people are arrested or persecuted, Jaamat-ul-Mujahideen will take the counter-action,” the leaflets said.
They also warned the United States and Britain against occupation of Moslem lands: “It is also to warn Bush and Blair to vacate Moslem countries, or to face Moslem upsurge.”
People in the West tend to view the war on terrorism as a war that pitts the West against Islamic fundamentalist extremists. In fact, a major part of the war is a war against Muslim countries waged by Islamic fundamentalist extremists want to take over other Muslim countries.
In that sense a parallel with Hitler does hold. But instead of Hitler trying to gobble up Europe you have Islamic terrorists seeking to gobble up Muslim countries.Press Trust of India has this:
Police suspected that an Islamic militant group might be behind orchestrating the fusillade as they found leaflets on the scenes of explosions under the name of banned Jamiat-Ul-Mujahideen, Bangladesh calling for implementation of Islamic rule in the country.
The leaflets were also found in other districts and the group is led by the so-called “Bangla Bhai.”
Bangla Bhai is on the run after his group was banned last year and his spiritual leader is reportedly a Rajshahi University Professor
Mohamamd Galib, who is now in jail on bombing charges.
The Indo-Asian News Service adds:
Leaflets from the group were found at the site of some of the blasts.
One of them said: “It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh. There is no future with man-made law.”
The propaganda sheets also denounced US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, asking them to “get out of Muslim countries”.
Bomb blasts aren’t new to Bangladesh: the Bangladesh website Mahatmat.com notes that “nearly 150 people were killed and about 1,000 others injured in a series of major bomb blasts and attacks in Bangladesh since 1999.”
But the STYLE OF THIS ONE is apparently new. It again underscores the nature of Al Qaeda as being a kind of corporate role model or, in other cases, corporate home office for terrorism. 21st century terrorism is likely be marked with simultaneous acts of terror.
Meanwhile, the Canadian government is warning its citizens not to travel to Bangladesh.
PERSONAL NOTE: I reported for the old Chicago Daily News from Bangladesh several times during the mid 70s, when I was based in New Delhi, India. Bangladesh is a beautiful country — formerly part of Pakistan and formerly part of India. It has struggled against obstacles (particularly its searing povery) and suffered huge tragedies and upheavals over the years — but its people always come through. Here are some additional sites for info on Bangladesh:
Virtual Bangladesh
CIA factbook on Bangladesh
Bangladesh government website
Bangladesh Biman Airlines
Wikipedia on Bangladesh
UPDATE: Some other sites commenting on or having links on this story include:
Instapundit
Barcepundit
James Joyner
Michael Totten
Third World View has THIS NEW COMMENT
Common Sense Desk
Uncorrelated
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.