JMB now small, but menacingly poised

More than half a dozen key players behind the near-simultaneous countrywide blasts in 2005 are still at large and regrouping banned Islamist outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
Sleuths involved in the hunt for the militants for over last three years told The Daily Star yesterday that the outlawed group is not as big now as it was a few years back, but it surely poses serious threats to national security.
They said many of them thought execution of six JMB top brass including its supremo Shaikh Abdur Rahman and operations commander Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai in March 2007 would leave the outfit in ruins. But soon they found to their dismay that the militant remnants had been working relentlessly to gain the lost ground.
Meanwhile, sources in the law enforcement communality said ego clashes between the police and Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) intensified during the caretaker regime, slowing down the anti-militant drive.
The law enforcers could not yet hunt down JMB veterans like Hatkata Mahfuz of Pabna, Boma Mizan of Jamalpur, Fakhruddin Razi of Satkhira and Mustafiz of Gazipur who had played a leading part in pulling off the almost synchronised blasts over three years back.
Besides, they also could not trace Moulana Sayeed and Sayem, both identified by JMB ehsar (full-time member) Hanif as involved in the efforts to reorganise the militant forces.
Hanif was arrested last year in the city's Mirpur area.
"It's quite urgent to nab these men who we believe are reorganising their cadres under the leadership of Saidur Rahman. They are also training new entrants to the outfit," said an investigator who would not be identified talking about the issue.
A Rab source well placed to comment on the JMB operatives rounded up in the last two years said most of them are field-level cadres, and during interrogations they could not give much information about their organisational network. They said whatever they did they did on instructions from someone whose identity was meticulously hidden from them.
Referring to the information obtained in interrogations, an investigator said, "Our understanding is that the JMB leaders don't want to make the organisation big at this time as that might mean risking detection by the law enforcers. Rather, they prefer working in small groups with particular targets."
This strategy does not allow interrogators to get a bigger picture from the arrestees.
It has in fact made it difficult for the law enforcers to detect and dismantle the militant network, he continued.
“The most frustrating aspect in the campaign against militancy is our failure to have moles infiltrated the terror network.”
To complicate matters further, relations between Rab and police personnel have worsened due to professional jealousy and ego conflict, said some other sources concerned.
Rab has been leading the anti-militant drive since 2005. Till the caretaker government rule began, they worked effectively with cooperation from the police.
But in last two years, there was a serious lack of coordination between them.
Under the caretaker administration, police preferred running their own anti-militant operations. They decided not to involve Rab in pursuit of their targets.
Such an approach led to a gap between them and the elite crime busters in the crackdown on militants.
Things got worse as the then government high-ups did not intervene to thaw the relations between the two forces. Increasingly, Rab's enthusiasm wore thin, and they seemed to have lost the initiative in the fight against militancy, observed a highly placed source.
"We were like 'okay…let them [police] go on their own if that's what they want'," said the source.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, another law enforcement official said, "You will see Rab-police coordination only in statements. It is absent at the field level, where it matters most."
Friday's recoveries and arrests made separately by police and Rab in Gazipur exposed the lack of coordination, he added.
Rab has been after the militants in Gazipur for the last 15 days. But on Friday morning when the local police 'happened to have leads about some JMB activists holed up at Ghortail village, they carried out a raid all by themselves. They did not even share the intelligence with Rab, said a source.
"They wanted their success to hog the media attention and so arranged a press briefing in the evening during when the grenade blast took place. Around same time, Rab held a press meeting on the outcome of their raids at Konabari and Uttarkhan," added the source.
Sources in law enforcement agencies said the strained relations between police and Rab are not only hampering the drive against militants but also undermining the efforts to contain other crimes.
Speaking from his experience, an investigator said, "I'm afraid if we fail to pull apart the militant network, the JMB men will soon gather enough strength to repeat blasts like 2005. This time the result would be even more devastating as they can now make grenades, bombs and other explosive devices out of local materials."