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Bangladesh and a stern response to terror

In the weeks since five militants took hostages and opened fire at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the government’s response has been relentless and innovative.

Authorities stepped up efforts to locate and arrest extremists and sought to remedy the growing problem of radicalization at its root — in schools, mosques and online. Police also erected more security barriers and began to use new methods of intelligence-gathering, including a mobile app that allows citizens to quickly report crimes and suspected acts of terrorism.

Bangladesh actually started its anti-terror drive before the bakery massacre. In June, security forces detained hundreds of suspects in a concerted effort to locate and discourage terrorists.…  Seguir leyendo »

When I was growing up in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in the 1980s, I always wanted to live in a part of town called Gulshan. In my 7-year-old mind, it was the center of the universe. My family lived in an older (and not nearly as hip) part of Dhaka city, and they seemed to have no intention of ever moving from my paternal grandparent's home.

As the years went by, even as the rest of the city changed, Gulshan remained -- in my mind, at least -- the glamorous and unattainable part of town. Framed by its famous deep emerald Gulshan Lake, this was the part of Dhaka that always housed a big chunk of foreign embassies, the best restaurants and cafes, the most luxurious apartments and homes, and countless aid organization offices.…  Seguir leyendo »

The July 1 terrorist attack in Dhaka hit unnervingly close to home. The Bangladeshi side of my family lost a relative -- Faraaz Hossain, a 20-year-old student at Emory University in the U.S. who was home for the holidays.

I had been at the site of the massacre, the Holey Artisan Bakery, in Dhaka's upscale Gulshan neighborhood, twice during my last visit to the country. Personal grief aside, this is the most visible manifestation yet of the threat that a new generation of self-styled jihadis poses to a country that prides itself on its moderate, secular, pluralistic society.

After the attack, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed to bring all terrorists to justice and condemned those who killed in the name of Islam.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Bangladeshi man cries after his vehicle was set on fire by Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami activists following the execution of their party leader Abdul Quader Mollah in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, Dec. 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Suvra Kanti Das).

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Bangladesh in June, he praised Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as a formidable force in fighting regional and global terrorism while working to build a tolerant, secular country free of extremism.

These are more than planks in a political platform. They are core beliefs written in family blood.

In 1975, the Bangladesh leader was a 27-year-old wife and mother. Bangladesh had achieved its independence from Pakistan only four years earlier through a devastating war. Her father, Sheikh Mujibar Rahman, was Bangladesh’s Founding Father and President.

Ms. Hasina was on a goodwill tour in Europe with her husband and her younger sister when a coup took place in Dhaka, the capital.…  Seguir leyendo »

By Selig S. Harrison, a former South Asia bureau chief of The Post and the author of five books on South Asia, has covered Bangladesh since 1951. He is the director of the Asia program at the Center for International Policy and a senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (THE WASHINGTON POST, 02/08/06):

While the United States dithers, a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement linked to al-Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence agencies is steadily converting the strategically located nation of Bangladesh into a new regional hub for terrorist operations that reach into India and Southeast Asia.

With 147 million people, largely Muslim Bangladesh has substantial Hindu and Christian minorities and is nominally a secular democracy.…  Seguir leyendo »