‘Big attacks’ on key installations were their aim
Fakhrul Islam went to Pakistan in 1988 to join the Afghan war when he was only 24.
He returned to Bangladesh after 10 years, but before that he spent several years in Pakistan, Iran, and received training in Afghanistan's Kandahar on operating AK-47 rifles, submachine guns (SMGs), and even rocket launchers.
He became an expert in assembling SMGs, able to complete the task in just 30 seconds.
During those 10 years, Fakhrul, now 58 years old, met Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and held several meetings with them.
Since his return, he had joined Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (Huji-B) and till his arrest on Friday, was working to revive the outfit's operations by collecting funds and conducting activities through social media. He even visited Rohingya camps in Cox's Bazar to recruit new members.
He was planning to carry out "big militant attacks" on major establishments in Bangladesh to show that Huji-B was not yet wiped out.
This was the information that the cybercrime investigation division of the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit said it gathered, following the arrest of Fakhrul and five others of the outfit from different areas of the capital on Friday.
The five others are Fakhrul's son Saiful Islam, 24, Suruzzaman, 45, Abdullah Al Mamun, 23, Din Islam, 25, and Abdullah Al Mamun, 46.
A Dhaka court yesterday placed each of the six arrestees on a three-day remand.
Addressing a briefing yesterday, CTTC Chief Md Asaduzzaman said Fakhrul, an active member of Huji-B, was a security guard at a Gazipur madrasa in 1988.
Later that year, he went to Karachi from Bangladesh and met Mufti Zakir Hossain, a Bangladesh-born madrasa principal in Karachi and also the military commander of the Al-Qaeda.
Under Zakir's guidance, Fakhrul received training, travelling between Pakistan and Afghanistan several times, said Asaduzzaman.
He received training on different types of firearms at Shamshad hill of Kandahar. He even worked as security staffer at the hill for four hours daily, armed with an AK-47, said the official.
At the end of the training, Fakhrul returned to Pakistan in 1995 and then went to Tehran, where he stayed for three years. In 1998, he returned to Pakistan, got an Indian visa from there, and returned to Bangladesh through India.
CTTC officials said Huji-B became an outfit without leaders due to many top leaders being arrested in drives by law enforcers.
Fakhrul started taking part in Huji-B activities after his return to the country but was arrested in 2005. He, however, managed to secure bail within six months.
Recently, he took charge of the outfit and was working to revive its activities.
He used to communicate with his associates and supporters of the outfit through encrypted apps. Fakhrul also maintains connections with other Huji-B members staying abroad and was hatching a plan for big attacks, said investigators.
As part of training the members, he shared a 10-page document to teach them how to make bombs and time-bombs at home, said the CTTC chief.
During the press briefing, the CTTC showed a bomb-making video tutorial made by the outfit, in which they tried to lure people into the path of militancy.
He claimed that Fakhrul and his son Saiful, along with other Huji-B members, donated a huge amount of money to Rohingya camps in Cox's Bazar to recruit members from there.
"We have come to know that they have managed to recruit some Rohingyas," he said, without elaborating on the number and the amount Huji-B donated.
"We are now trying to verify the source of funding and conducting drives to arrest the absconding members of the outfit."
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