DHAKA ATTACKS: A NIGHT OF TERROR

On the night of 1st of July 2016, at 21:20 local time, five militants took hostages and open fired on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan Thana—an affluent area with many embassies in Dhaka,Bangladesh. This resulted in the deaths of 20 foreigners. Among the dead from Friday’s attack, the police said, were nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, one American and one Indian.

This attack seems just an addition to a growing list of attacks in Bangladesh on foreigners, religious minorities and secular bloggers. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (the Islamic State) and al Qaeda have claimed responsibility for some of the attacks but the Bangladeshi government dismisses these claims saying these are attention grabbing tactics, which other major intelligence organisations of the world also doubt. Bangladesh Attack Is New Evidence That ISIS Has Shifted Its Focus Beyond the Mideast. The attack also suggests that Bangladesh’s militant networks are internationalising, a key concern as the United States seeks to contain the growth of the Islamic State.

A more plausible interpretation would suggest that the attacks are indeed inspired by pan-nationalist Islamist groups such as the Islamic State. Some of those involved in the bakery attack were well-educated and from wealthy backgrounds. If Bangladesh is facing the threat from lone-wolf attackers, or from small groups of radicalised individuals, better intelligence would seem to be a more effective strategy than the current one of rounding up the usual suspects. Presumably, those who attacked the bakery had not been affected by the June arrests and random arrests were what took place in Bangladesh just to show that their government is working. the fact that a countries key concern should be finding the true attackers and extracting as much information as possible so that the country is a safe haven from such activities, the government of bangladesh seems to be believing otherwise.

The defence that radical Islam does not sit easily with Islam as practised in Bangladesh holds true, but it is also an almost universal truth. No islam in this big wide world would probably sit true with those of the islamic radical organisations such as ISIS itself.

Somewhere in the intersection of secularism, an illiberal state and war crimes trials may lie reasons for the recent attacks in Bangladesh. But the fact that till date not just Bangladesh but the world has not been able to track down and eradicate such radicalist terror organisations and that their growth still continues worries the globe as a whole. is just condemning such attacks by the UNSC enough or more needs to be done by countries individually and the world as a whole?