Date: Wednesday 14 December 2005
Subj: Iran: Old Guards Return.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
-------------------------------
IRAN: OLD GUARDS RETURN
-------------------------------
Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), two groups whose names are synonymous with Iranian repression and terror, are making a comeback under President Ahmadinejad.
As noted in the WEA RLC News & Analysis report entitled "The Islamic Revolution is now complete" (29 August 2005), "Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has flooded the Majlis (parliament) with former Revolutionary Guards while Ayatollah Khamenei has made key changes in security structures and strategies to entrench the Revolutionary Guards' hegemony over all law enforcement agencies."
Now Iran's MPs are purging their domains of Khatami-era officials and replacing them with heavy-handed hardliners, including many former senior secret police from the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) who were complicit in the serial murders of dissidents and intellectuals that took place in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. President Khatami's sensitivity to international relations led to these murderers being removed from positions of public authority, but now under President Ahmadinejad they are making a comeback. For this regime, a proved track record in brutality, assassination and inflexible hard-line Islamic ideology makes an ideal prerequisite for a government job. In fact, having hands that are stained with the blood of Christian martyrs appears to be a perfect prerequisite for a senior position in the Ministry of Interior.
---------------------------------------------------------------
PERSECUTION ESCALATES DRAMATICALLY
On 22 November, Pastor Ghorban Dordi Tourani (53) was kidnapped from his home and stabbed to death, allegedly by an unnamed group of fanatical Muslims. His body was later dumped back at his home. Pastor Tourani, a convert from Islam, was pastoring an independent fellowship of convert Christians in Gonbad-e-Kavus, northeastern Iran. He is survived by his widow and four children aged between 3 and 23yrs.
Compass Direct reports, "Within hours of the November 22 murder, local secret police arrived at the martyred pastor's home, searching for Bibles and other banned Christian books in the Farsi language. By the end of the following day, the secret police had also raided the houses of all other known Christian believers in the city.
"According to one informed Iranian source, during the past eight days representatives of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have arrested and severely tortured 10 other Christians in several cities, including Tehran. All the detainees have since been released.
"In addition, MOIS officials have visited known Christian leaders since Tourani's murder and have instructed them to warn acquaintances in the unofficial, Protestant house fellowships that 'the government knows what you are doing, and we will come for you soon'." (CD, 28 Nov 2005)
OLD GUARD MOIS RETURNS: TO THE INTERIOR MINISTRY...
Hojjatoleslam Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, a Shiite cleric who was the Deputy Minister of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) for some 13 years during the late 80s and throughout the 90s has been appointed as Iran's Interior Minister. Iran Focus reports, "Critics charge that Pour-Mohammadi is replacing Interior Ministry officials with former colleagues from the secret police, thus creating another security apparatus." (Link 1)
Two of Pour-Mohammadi's appointments to senior positions in the Interior Ministry are: Mahmoud Saeedi, the former director of MOIS in Isfahan province, who has been appointed as Director General of the Interior Ministry; and Shahab Goodarzi, the former deputy director of MOIS in Isfahan, who has been appointed as Director of Security in the Interior Ministry.
It is of great concern that Iran's Interior Ministry, a ministry that has control of the security forces and is responsible for preserving political stability, is to be run by men who were senior MOIS officials during Iran's dark and bloody days of the serial murders of dissidents and intellectuals. Iranian Christians may feel an especially cold chill, as Saeedi comes into the Interior Ministry with the blood of Christian martyrs on his hands.
Iran Focus reports, "A former senior official in Iran's dreaded secret police, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), who personally oversaw the gruesome murders of two Christian bishops and a priest in Iran in the 1990s, has been appointed as the new Director General of the country's Interior Ministry.
"Mahmoud Saeedi, who formerly headed the MOIS department in Isfahan Province, was removed from his position in 1999 under mounting pressure on the Iranian government after it became clear that his agents had carried out the brutal murder of three Anglican Church figures in Iran."
Investigations by dissident investigative journalist Akbar Ganji (now imprisoned) revealed that MOIS was responsible for the serial killings of dissidents and intellectuals that took place through the 1990s, and that the murders of Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr, Bishop Tateos Michaelian, and Reverend Mehdi Dibaj were ordered by Deputy Intelligence Minister Saeed Emami and carried out by a team under the command of Mahmoud Saeedi.
According to Iran Focus, after Mahmoud Saeedi was removed from MOIS, he went to work with other former senior MOIS officials in the Special Security Office of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran Focus reports that Saeedi's boss in Khamenei's Special Security Office "was Hojjatoleslam Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi".
So Iran's Interior Ministry, which is responsible for maintaining internal stability and security, is now being led by old guard MOIS officials who have already demonstrated their willingness to persecute and assassinate dissidents, intellectuals and Christian leaders.
.. AND TO THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND ISLAMIC GUIDANCE
Former Revolutionary Guard, Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi, Iran's new Minister for Culture and Islamic Guidance, is also purging his subordinates. He is determined that books, journalism, visual arts, film, music and all cultural pursuits must conform to and re-enforce Iran's Islamic ideology and the strictest of Islamic values.
Most interestingly, the Iran Press Service reports, "Masha'allah Shamsolva'ezin, spokesman for the Tehran-based Association for Advocating Freedom of Press, said that state pressure on journalists has increased since [President] Ahmadi Nezhad took office. According to Shamsolvaezin, the culture ministry, in cooperation with intelligence and security forces, has in recent weeks called in many journalists for questioning without apparent reasons. The goal clearly is to intimidate them. Many of those pressing journalists are former employees of the Ministry of Intelligence [MOIS] who were fired under Khatami for their involvement in killing intellectuals and political activists." (Link 2)
The article at link 2, entitled, "Tehran renews war on culture" gives details of measures to control, police and further Islamise journalism, book publishing, musical performances, women's dress, and universities. This Islamic "war" against Persian culture will doubtless continue until Persians decide they want their Persian culture back.
MOTIVATIONS
President Ahmadinejad is committed to preparing Iran for what he firmly believes is the inevitable, even immanent return of the "hidden 12th Imam". I (EK) have to confess that I am not exactly sure what is required to hasten the Imam's return, but I think it might be a pure Islamic Iran surrounded by a world in chaos. If Ahmadinejad is pursuing this scenario, then that is disturbing on several fronts.
A few interesting articles on the religious motivations of President Ahmadinejad can be found at link 3. This is a subject that deserves closer attention, because Ahmadinejad's faith in and expectation of a messiah-style immanently returning 12th Imam reduces his devotion to the Guardian Council, expunges his interest in international opinion, but increases his zeal for an uncompromising, aggressive and authoritative Revolutionary Guard and MOIS to help usher in his apocalypse.
Links
1) Iran appoints murderer of Christian bishops to key position.
22 Nov 2005
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4532
2) Tehran renews war on culture
By Mahdi Khalaji, 26 November 2005
http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2005/november-2005/culture_crackdown_261105.shtml
3) Iran president paves the way for Arabs' imam return
By Paul Hughes, Reuters,17 Nov 2005
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_10945.shtml
Second coming for imam is first concern for Iranian president
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr and Gareth Smyth.
Financial Times. 9 November 2005
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1519153/posts
Shi'ite supremacists emerge from Iran's shadows
Asia Times On-line. 9 Sept 2005
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GI09Ak01.html
Religion Versus Reality
By Richard Ernsberger Jr. Newsweek International. 12 Dec 2005
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10313618/site/newsweek/
President of Iran: Hallucinations of a psychopath. 3 Dec 2005
By Bahman Aghai Diba, PhD International Law - Persian Journal
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_11240.shtml
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Friday, December 2, 2005
Bangladesh: Islamist threat escalates with suicide bombings.
Date: Friday 2 December 2005
Subj: Bangladesh: Islamist threat escalates with suicide bombings.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
------------------------------------
BANGLADESH: WAVE OF SUICIDE BOMBINGS
- new terror tactic increases risk to threatened Christian leaders, institutions and NGOs.
------------------------------------
More than 30 years ago, Bangladesh fought a Liberation War for the right to be independent of Pakistan, and secular. The war cost the Bangladeshis somewhere between 500,000 and three million lives. Today, Islamic militants with al Qaeda training and links are engaged in a violent and deadly campaign to force Bangladesh to submit to Sharia law.
Islamic zeal and radicalisation have skyrocketed in Bangladesh since October 2001 causing local persecution of Christians to escalate in frequency and severity. Now organised Islamic terror threatens to destabilise the nation and the wider region. Of course it will also seriously impact the Church. Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) is presently targeting Bangladesh's secular courts and judges, and threatening to continue until Sharia is implemented. But JMB has also declared that it will target NGOs and non-Muslim religious figures and institutions engaged in "anti-Islamic activities". It is reported that Bangladesh has some 172 terror training camps operating on its soil, and that JMB has a 2,000-strong suicide squad prepared for martyrdom operations.
The pro-Islamic Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), elected in October 2001 to rule in coalition with some very radical Islamist groups, has difficulty facing and dealing with these threats. It has used Western law and democracy for its own advantage, but now the popularist Islamist puppy it has fostered and nurtured has matured, is exerting its independence, and is starting to bite. Unless the government gets serious about replacing radical madrassas with real and positive education, closing terror training camps, and promoting secularism, tolerance and democracy, then Bangladesh will develop into a Islamic terror hub and jihad launching pad. Nothing grows, spreads and wreaks havoc like a disease that is not acknowledged and is left untreated.
-----------------------------------------------
WAVE OF SUICIDE BOMBINGS
On Tuesday 29 November, suicide bombers from Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) – also known as Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JuM) – fatally struck law courts in two Bangladeshi cities, killing seven. Around 60 were wounded, 21 of them seriously. The death toll has since risen to ten. (Link 1)
The first bombing took place at 9:05am in Bangladesh's second largest city, the port city of Chittagong. In response to terror threats, police had been posted at the entrance of the court and were checking all visitors. Just before he was to be intercepted at the police checkpoint, the bomber took an explosive device out of his bag and threw it at the officers. He then detonated another explosive device strapped to his leg. The two policemen were killed.
The bomber, who survived but lost both his legs and his right hand, was identified as Abul Bashar (19). He reportedly told Agence France-Presse (AFP), "I attacked the Chittagong court by the order of Allah. I did not do any wrong in carrying out the suicidal attack." A report by the Bangladesh Independent online news said police had found a JMB leaflet in his pocket. According to Chittagong police official Mohammad Majedul Huq, it was handwritten and warned police, judges and lawyers "to stop upholding man-made laws which go against Islam". At least 16 others were injured; 13 of them were police. Abul Bashar has since died from his injuries in Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
The second bombing took place in Gazipur at 9:40am. The bomber donned a lawyer's black gown and walked right past police security into the bar library where he detonated his bomb. Three people in the library died immediately and four others died from their wounds soon after in hospital in Dhaka. The suicide bomber's body was found with wires and bomb parts still strapped to it.
At around 10am on Thursday 1 December, as lawyers were staging a demonstration in Gazipur, a bomb exploded near the police checkpoint outside the chief government administrator's office. Two were killed and 30 were injured, five critically. One of the dead was a policeman, the other is believed to be the suicide bomber. According to Kazi Fazle Rabbi, Gazipur district commissioner, "The suspected bomber ... disguised himself as a tea vendor. One of his flasks exploded when police stopped him for checking." (Link 2)
ESCALATION OF TERROR
On 17 August, JMB (JuM) orchestrated a nation-wide terror attack, setting off nearly 500 small improvised explosive devices (IEDs) virtually simultaneously in 63 of Bangladesh's 64 districts. While the devices did not contain shrapnel, they did result in three deaths and left more than 150 injured. Pamphlets found near many of the explosive devices demanded the expulsion of foreign NGOs "engaged in anti-Islamic activities in Muslim countries". (Stratfor Terrorism Brief, 23 November 2005)
The carnage from the August bombing campaign was minimal but the message was loud and clear. As noted by Stratfor, the August bombing campaign "demonstrates that JuM has a widespread presence, robust logistics and sophisticated command-and-control capabilities".
After this attack JMB (JuM) declared, "Everybody is the enemy of Islam who wants to launch democracy as an institutional form. Therefore we invite the ruling party and also the opposition to initiate the rule of Islam within a short time in Bangladesh."
On 22 August, Bangladesh's leading national Bengali daily newspaper reported that the Intelligence Department had informed the government that Islamic militants are planning to attack the largest non-Muslim religious centres in Dhaka. They were also threatening to kill local and foreign non-Muslim leaders, missionaries, priests, humanitarian workers and anyone else preaching religion other than Islam. Christianity was to be particularly targeted for the purpose of discrediting the government of Bangladesh in the West. (See WEA RLC report: link 3)
On 3 October, larger bombs exploded in three district courts outside Dhaka, killing two people and wounding more than a dozen. Then on 14 November two senior Assistant Judges of Jhalakathi District Judges Court were assassinated on their way to work. Their microbus stopped outside the government staff quarters to pick up another judge. The assassin, identified as Mamun, a JMB militant, approached the microbus with the pretext of showing papers to the judges. He then shoved a package into the microbus which immediately exploded. The assassin, who survived with serious leg wounds, was immediately arrested. He was found to have some 24 JMB leaflets, and a live bomb fastened to his body. Presumably the assassin intended to escape, with the body-bomb to be used only in the case of capture. His injuries however probably prevented him detonating the body-bomb before his arrest. His willingness to explode himself and thus become a "martyr" was evidence of a shocking new tactic and ideological shift.
In their 23 November Terrorism Brief, Stratfor Intelligence reported, "According to a Nov. 22 report in the Bangladeshi English-language Daily Star newspaper, the JuM's (JMBs) policymaking body -- Majlis-e-Shura -- recently ordered its bomb and suicide squad members to fight their opposition to the death and to continue striking government offices and courts." Stratfor notes, "JuM (JMB) appears to have no problem obtaining explosives, and apparently is actively constructing devices – an activity normally conducted at the end of the attack planning cycle." And Stratfor adds, "JuM members reportedly received training from al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and allegedly maintain links with that group."
According to Reuters, Bangladeshi police report that the explosives used in the 29 November suicide bombings are the most powerful and highly destructive explosives used by the militants so far. Reuters also reports, "The State Minister for Home Affairs Lutufuzzaman Babar said earlier this month [Nov] that there were reports that the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen had set up a 2,000-strong suicide squad." (Link 4)
THREAT TO EMBASSIES
The British High Commission's First Secretary in Dhaka, Mike Stevenson, reports that Manik Hossain, a Muslim extremist identifying himself as a member of "al-Qaeda in South Asia", has threatened to blow up the UK mission, along with other Western missions. The threatening message was sent to the UK Embassy by fax on Sunday 27 November, and signed by Manik Hossain of Faridganj" (220km, or around 140 miles, southeast of Dhaka). Security has now been increased around diplomatic offices in Dhaka. (Link 5)
BANGLADESH: TERROR HUB
Webindia reports that on 29 November, India's Border Security Force (BSF) Director General R S Mooshahary told a press conference "the unabated mushrooming of terror camps" in Bangladesh, and the fact that Bangladesh is becoming "a hub of infiltrators and fundamentalist forces" threatens to destabilise the whole region. "In the long run," warned Gen. Mooshahary, "Bangladesh could be a greater problem than Pakistan going by the shifting of population, massive infiltration bids and mushrooming of terror camps... it has become a hub of drug dealers and smugglers."
Mooshahary claimed to have recently given Bangladesh a list of 172 terror training camps. "But their reply is the same every time," he complains, " ...that no such camps exists on their soil." (Link 6)
Elizabeth Kendal
Links
1) BANGLADESH BOMBING TOLL RISES
30 November 2005. SBS
http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=126032®ion=2
Seven killed, many injured in Bangladesh blasts
http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=58404
Nine die in Bangladesh bombings
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4480408.stm
Bangladesh's escalating extremism. 29 November 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4482320.stm
2) Two dead in court attack. 2 December 2005
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17435239-23109,00.html
3) WEA Religious Liberty News & Analysis
Militants Move to Islamise Bangladesh
By Elizabeth Kendal, 16 September 2005
http://www.worldevangelicalalliance.org/news/view.htm?id=151
4) Bangladesh explosives most powerful yet -- police
30 Nov 2005. Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DHA129923.htm
Bombs target Bangladesh lawyers. 29 November 2005
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/11/29/bangladesh.blasts.reut/index.html
5) Man threatens UK, US missions in Bangladesh – police
28 Nov 2005. Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DHA97711.htm
6) Bangladesh a hub of infiltrators and fundamentalists: BSF DG
New Delhi, 29 November 2005
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=176465&cat=India
Subj: Bangladesh: Islamist threat escalates with suicide bombings.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
------------------------------------
BANGLADESH: WAVE OF SUICIDE BOMBINGS
- new terror tactic increases risk to threatened Christian leaders, institutions and NGOs.
------------------------------------
More than 30 years ago, Bangladesh fought a Liberation War for the right to be independent of Pakistan, and secular. The war cost the Bangladeshis somewhere between 500,000 and three million lives. Today, Islamic militants with al Qaeda training and links are engaged in a violent and deadly campaign to force Bangladesh to submit to Sharia law.
Islamic zeal and radicalisation have skyrocketed in Bangladesh since October 2001 causing local persecution of Christians to escalate in frequency and severity. Now organised Islamic terror threatens to destabilise the nation and the wider region. Of course it will also seriously impact the Church. Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) is presently targeting Bangladesh's secular courts and judges, and threatening to continue until Sharia is implemented. But JMB has also declared that it will target NGOs and non-Muslim religious figures and institutions engaged in "anti-Islamic activities". It is reported that Bangladesh has some 172 terror training camps operating on its soil, and that JMB has a 2,000-strong suicide squad prepared for martyrdom operations.
The pro-Islamic Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), elected in October 2001 to rule in coalition with some very radical Islamist groups, has difficulty facing and dealing with these threats. It has used Western law and democracy for its own advantage, but now the popularist Islamist puppy it has fostered and nurtured has matured, is exerting its independence, and is starting to bite. Unless the government gets serious about replacing radical madrassas with real and positive education, closing terror training camps, and promoting secularism, tolerance and democracy, then Bangladesh will develop into a Islamic terror hub and jihad launching pad. Nothing grows, spreads and wreaks havoc like a disease that is not acknowledged and is left untreated.
-----------------------------------------------
WAVE OF SUICIDE BOMBINGS
On Tuesday 29 November, suicide bombers from Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) – also known as Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JuM) – fatally struck law courts in two Bangladeshi cities, killing seven. Around 60 were wounded, 21 of them seriously. The death toll has since risen to ten. (Link 1)
The first bombing took place at 9:05am in Bangladesh's second largest city, the port city of Chittagong. In response to terror threats, police had been posted at the entrance of the court and were checking all visitors. Just before he was to be intercepted at the police checkpoint, the bomber took an explosive device out of his bag and threw it at the officers. He then detonated another explosive device strapped to his leg. The two policemen were killed.
The bomber, who survived but lost both his legs and his right hand, was identified as Abul Bashar (19). He reportedly told Agence France-Presse (AFP), "I attacked the Chittagong court by the order of Allah. I did not do any wrong in carrying out the suicidal attack." A report by the Bangladesh Independent online news said police had found a JMB leaflet in his pocket. According to Chittagong police official Mohammad Majedul Huq, it was handwritten and warned police, judges and lawyers "to stop upholding man-made laws which go against Islam". At least 16 others were injured; 13 of them were police. Abul Bashar has since died from his injuries in Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
The second bombing took place in Gazipur at 9:40am. The bomber donned a lawyer's black gown and walked right past police security into the bar library where he detonated his bomb. Three people in the library died immediately and four others died from their wounds soon after in hospital in Dhaka. The suicide bomber's body was found with wires and bomb parts still strapped to it.
At around 10am on Thursday 1 December, as lawyers were staging a demonstration in Gazipur, a bomb exploded near the police checkpoint outside the chief government administrator's office. Two were killed and 30 were injured, five critically. One of the dead was a policeman, the other is believed to be the suicide bomber. According to Kazi Fazle Rabbi, Gazipur district commissioner, "The suspected bomber ... disguised himself as a tea vendor. One of his flasks exploded when police stopped him for checking." (Link 2)
ESCALATION OF TERROR
On 17 August, JMB (JuM) orchestrated a nation-wide terror attack, setting off nearly 500 small improvised explosive devices (IEDs) virtually simultaneously in 63 of Bangladesh's 64 districts. While the devices did not contain shrapnel, they did result in three deaths and left more than 150 injured. Pamphlets found near many of the explosive devices demanded the expulsion of foreign NGOs "engaged in anti-Islamic activities in Muslim countries". (Stratfor Terrorism Brief, 23 November 2005)
The carnage from the August bombing campaign was minimal but the message was loud and clear. As noted by Stratfor, the August bombing campaign "demonstrates that JuM has a widespread presence, robust logistics and sophisticated command-and-control capabilities".
After this attack JMB (JuM) declared, "Everybody is the enemy of Islam who wants to launch democracy as an institutional form. Therefore we invite the ruling party and also the opposition to initiate the rule of Islam within a short time in Bangladesh."
On 22 August, Bangladesh's leading national Bengali daily newspaper reported that the Intelligence Department had informed the government that Islamic militants are planning to attack the largest non-Muslim religious centres in Dhaka. They were also threatening to kill local and foreign non-Muslim leaders, missionaries, priests, humanitarian workers and anyone else preaching religion other than Islam. Christianity was to be particularly targeted for the purpose of discrediting the government of Bangladesh in the West. (See WEA RLC report: link 3)
On 3 October, larger bombs exploded in three district courts outside Dhaka, killing two people and wounding more than a dozen. Then on 14 November two senior Assistant Judges of Jhalakathi District Judges Court were assassinated on their way to work. Their microbus stopped outside the government staff quarters to pick up another judge. The assassin, identified as Mamun, a JMB militant, approached the microbus with the pretext of showing papers to the judges. He then shoved a package into the microbus which immediately exploded. The assassin, who survived with serious leg wounds, was immediately arrested. He was found to have some 24 JMB leaflets, and a live bomb fastened to his body. Presumably the assassin intended to escape, with the body-bomb to be used only in the case of capture. His injuries however probably prevented him detonating the body-bomb before his arrest. His willingness to explode himself and thus become a "martyr" was evidence of a shocking new tactic and ideological shift.
In their 23 November Terrorism Brief, Stratfor Intelligence reported, "According to a Nov. 22 report in the Bangladeshi English-language Daily Star newspaper, the JuM's (JMBs) policymaking body -- Majlis-e-Shura -- recently ordered its bomb and suicide squad members to fight their opposition to the death and to continue striking government offices and courts." Stratfor notes, "JuM (JMB) appears to have no problem obtaining explosives, and apparently is actively constructing devices – an activity normally conducted at the end of the attack planning cycle." And Stratfor adds, "JuM members reportedly received training from al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and allegedly maintain links with that group."
According to Reuters, Bangladeshi police report that the explosives used in the 29 November suicide bombings are the most powerful and highly destructive explosives used by the militants so far. Reuters also reports, "The State Minister for Home Affairs Lutufuzzaman Babar said earlier this month [Nov] that there were reports that the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen had set up a 2,000-strong suicide squad." (Link 4)
THREAT TO EMBASSIES
The British High Commission's First Secretary in Dhaka, Mike Stevenson, reports that Manik Hossain, a Muslim extremist identifying himself as a member of "al-Qaeda in South Asia", has threatened to blow up the UK mission, along with other Western missions. The threatening message was sent to the UK Embassy by fax on Sunday 27 November, and signed by Manik Hossain of Faridganj" (220km, or around 140 miles, southeast of Dhaka). Security has now been increased around diplomatic offices in Dhaka. (Link 5)
BANGLADESH: TERROR HUB
Webindia reports that on 29 November, India's Border Security Force (BSF) Director General R S Mooshahary told a press conference "the unabated mushrooming of terror camps" in Bangladesh, and the fact that Bangladesh is becoming "a hub of infiltrators and fundamentalist forces" threatens to destabilise the whole region. "In the long run," warned Gen. Mooshahary, "Bangladesh could be a greater problem than Pakistan going by the shifting of population, massive infiltration bids and mushrooming of terror camps... it has become a hub of drug dealers and smugglers."
Mooshahary claimed to have recently given Bangladesh a list of 172 terror training camps. "But their reply is the same every time," he complains, " ...that no such camps exists on their soil." (Link 6)
Elizabeth Kendal
Links
1) BANGLADESH BOMBING TOLL RISES
30 November 2005. SBS
http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=126032®ion=2
Seven killed, many injured in Bangladesh blasts
http://www.newkerala.com/news.php?action=fullnews&id=58404
Nine die in Bangladesh bombings
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4480408.stm
Bangladesh's escalating extremism. 29 November 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4482320.stm
2) Two dead in court attack. 2 December 2005
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17435239-23109,00.html
3) WEA Religious Liberty News & Analysis
Militants Move to Islamise Bangladesh
By Elizabeth Kendal, 16 September 2005
http://www.worldevangelicalalliance.org/news/view.htm?id=151
4) Bangladesh explosives most powerful yet -- police
30 Nov 2005. Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DHA129923.htm
Bombs target Bangladesh lawyers. 29 November 2005
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/11/29/bangladesh.blasts.reut/index.html
5) Man threatens UK, US missions in Bangladesh – police
28 Nov 2005. Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DHA97711.htm
6) Bangladesh a hub of infiltrators and fundamentalists: BSF DG
New Delhi, 29 November 2005
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=176465&cat=India
Monday, November 14, 2005
Guinea: Future in the balance.
Date: Monday 14 November 2005
Subj: Guinea: Future in the balance.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
---------------------------------------------------
GUINEA: FUTURE IN THE BALANCE
---------------------------------------------------
Nzerekore is located in the Forest Region of southeastern Guinea, West Africa, close to where the borders of Liberia, Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire meet. In the words of Major Algassimou Barry, the Prefect (government administrator) of Nzerekore and the surrounding district, "We're at the heart of a region in turmoil." (July 2004, Link 1)
BAPTISM SERVICE ATTACKED IN NZEREKORE
On Wednesday 19 October, a Christian baptism ceremony in the Gonia neighbourhood of Nzerekore was attacked by Muslims who were complaining that music from the church was disturbing their prayers in a nearby mosque. Ten people were injured, two seriously, and several houses were sacked. The Muslims rioted again on the Friday evening and razed a local video store. Elite soldiers, known as Rangers, had to be deployed to restore calm. Several guns were confiscated and a curfew was imposed. Over the weekend (22-23 October) some 100 people were arrested, with 56 still detained. (Link 2)
The Christians belong to the Guerze ethnic group which has a long history in the Forest Region of southeastern Guinea. Most Guerze practise Christianity or African Traditional Religion (ATR). The Muslims are Konianke, a sub-group of the Mandingo (also known as Malinki or Mandinki) people who have been Muslim since the 13th Century. The Konianke, who are traditionally nomadic traders, migrated south from northern Guinea during the late nineteenth century when Guinea was under French rule and the French had established a colonial administration in the Forest Region.
Ethnic-religious violence had previously erupted in Nzerekore on 16 June 2004 when, according to the US Department of State Human Rights Report 2004, "a Guerze youth on a motorcycle collided with a crowd leaving a mosque". Of the 238 people arrested, 234 were Konianke and 90 percent were Liberian. Two people died in that clash, but the toll would have been much higher had the Guinean security forces not moved so quickly to quell the fighting. (Link 1)
The incidents in Nzerekore arise out of several much larger issues: the ethnic tensions created by Mandingo southward migration; the religious tensions created by Muslim migration into regions historically populated by settled Christian and Animist tribes; the ethnic and religious superiority complex of many of the Mandingo Muslims, and the proliferation of weapons, bored ex-combatants and entrepreneurial criminals and soldiers for whom "war is more lucrative than peace".
Clearly, the Forest Region of southeastern Guinea must be viewed as a potential flash-point for future, major ethnic-religious conflict. Attention must be given to this region now, before disaster strikes and spreads like shock-waves.
ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS TENSIONS
The ethnic and religious tensions in the Forest Region of Guinea are similar in many ways to the ethnic and religious tensions that have manifest themselves around the wider region and all along Africa's ethnic-religious fault-line. Migration by Muslim tribes, into regions long inhabited and farmed by non-Muslim tribes, has created competition for land and resources. Increasingly over the past decade, religious tension has been exacerbated by the revival of Islamic zeal and orthodoxy. This has caused Muslim intolerance and anger to escalate in proportion to Muslim feelings of both superiority and victimhood. Once violence erupts it is virtually impossible to prevent it taking on a religious dimension. The main threats to peace come from Islamists stirring up feelings of Muslim supremacy and inciting conflict; and provocation by those who profit (financially or politically) from conflict. The primary needs are good governance, justice and disarmament.
Twelve months ago WEA RLC released a News & Analysis posting on ethnic-religious violence in Monrovia, in neighbouring Liberia, which touched on many of the same issues. Likewise, many of the WEA RLC posting concerning neigbouring Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) over the past 3 years, and on the religious violence in Plateau state, central Nigeria, have dealt with the same issues.
The main difference in Guinea, when compared to the above mentioned nations, is that in Guinea, Christians are a very small minority (less than 5 percent) in a country that is more than 85 percent Muslim, making the Christians even more vulnerable.
"LIBERIA, THE LURD AND GUINEA'S FOREST REGION" (ICG)
Thrown recently into this pot of simmering ethnic-religious tension is the most dangerous ingredient of all: a large quantity of armed, bored, exiled Muslim Liberian ex-rebel fighters. Guinea's support for Liberian rebel groups has come back to bite it.
In an excellent report entitled "Stopping Guinea's Slide" (June 2005), International Crisis Group (ICG) looks at the Forest Region as a potential flash-point where conflict could have dire consequences. ICG warns: "For some time, both Guineans and Guinea-watchers have been worried that a conflagration in the Forest Region could spark a generalised meltdown throughout the country." (ICG report: Link 4)
There is considerable documentary evidence that the government of President Conte in Guinea trained, armed, funded and gave refuge to Liberian rebels fighting against the government of Liberian President Charles Taylor during the Liberian War. ICG maintains "LURD fighters trained at the Kankan and Macenta military bases and were armed by the government from 1999 if not 1998." (ICG report, p 21)
ICG notes that 80 percent of Liberian refugees are Mandingos who are unwilling to return to Liberia where they feel they are not accepted and are regarded as 'foreigners'. But as ICG also notes, "A similar dynamic exists in Guinea, primarily in Macenta and N'Zerekore prefectures, where tensions between Forestier peoples, who consider themselves the original settlers, and Mandingoes, who are considered strangers, as in Liberia, are very high." (p 21)
The tension has been stretched to crisis levels in recent years because, since peace was brokered in Liberia in August 2003, many hundreds of LURD rebels have moved across the border into the Forest Region of Guinea where they can blend in amongst the thousands of Liberian refugees and find protection amidst their fellow Konianke Muslim brothers and sisters. Tension is further exacerbated by the fact that Taylor was from the same ethnic group as the non-Muslim peoples of Guinea's Forest Region.
The UN's Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) reported in July 2004, "Residents in Nzerekore said the town was packed with hundreds of Liberian gunmen made idle by a peace agreement which ended 14 years of civil war in their own country in August last year. 'The town is full of them, everybody knows that,' a local human rights activist in Nzerekore told IRIN. '...we know that they're still carrying their weapons and that they help their brothers the Konianke when the disputes explode between the two [Konianke and Guerze] communities,' he said." (Link 1)
The ICG adds a further layer to this situation. Under the sub-heading "LURD and the lost Mande Empire" (p 21), ICG explains that between 1905 and 1915, African warriors menaced the Manenta and Nzerekore prefectures and the wider region, preventing the French, English and American-Liberians from claiming control of the region.
LURD emerged in the Forest Region and is made up primarily of Mandingoes. The Mandingo fighters have a strong sense of history. They not only remember the warriors' dominance of the region in the early 20th Century, but they also remember and long for the days of the great Mali (or Mande) Empire (14th to 17th Centuries), when the Mandingoes, the founding fathers of Mali, controlled trans-Saharic trade from the Middle East to West Africa. According to ICG, "These [LURD] fighters sometimes talk about their longer-term mission being the restitution of a glorious Mandingo empire."(p 21)
ICG also notes that for many, "war is more lucrative than peace" (p 15). According to ICG, the military "has entrenched interests in pillage". ICG claims the military is involved in cross-border trade and in regional arms flows, including to the rebel "Forces Nouvelles" in Cote d'Ivoire (p 19). But as ICG notes, what usually starts out as a simple economic interest, can develop into serious security problems.
FUTURE IN THE BALANCE
Only months after the Liberian war ended, ICG released a report on the possible consequences for Guinea. It was entitled, "Guinea: Uncertainties at the End of an Era". (Africa Report No 74. 19 December 2003). ICG commented, "The large number of weapons and irregular combatants circulating in this region is one of the principal elements of concern. These armed groups with their unpredictable allegiances could serve the interests of politico-military elites who seek to create disorder and or to take power by force."
The June 2005 ICG report claims that today many LURD former combatants in Guinea are angry, believing that Conte has abandoned them. Also, in Liberia there are both pro- and anti-Guinean forces actively recruiting ex-combatants. ICG even comments that it is difficult to understand why no attacks have yet materialised. (p 21,22)
In the midst of this, Guinea is approaching a period of political uncertainty. President Conte is critically ill, there is no obvious successor, and the nation is soon to hold its first local elections for 10 years. On Sunday 18 December, Guineans will be able to vote for majors and rural councils in an election that will be seen as a test of the country's democratic reform process.
IRIN reports, "Guinea, where more than half the population lives on less than a dollar a day, has been ruled by Lansana Conte since he came to power in a 1984 coup. But his ill health and the lack of a clear successor in either the government or the opposition have led to worries that a dangerous power vacuum is looming.
"In its [June 2005] report, [International] Crisis Group said that disaster could only be averted if both the opposition and the international community engaged fully in the reform process, starting with these critical municipal elections. They will largely determine the quality of Guinean democracy. If they fail, the presidential succession will likely be disastrous." (Link 5)
After decades of Marxist, pro-Islamic persecution of the Church, there is now religious freedom in Guinea, which is 85.4 percent Muslim, 9.7 percent African Traditional Religion (ATR), and 4.7 percent Christian. Operation World reports that the Guinean Church has embraced mission and in the past decade indigenous workers have begun witnessing cross-culturally to previously unreached people groups. The Guinean Church is growing. But many analysts fear that Guinea is "primed for instability" (IRIN), and heading for a crisis. IRIN reports that diplomats and aid workers have long worried that the Forest Region is "a powder keg waiting to explode". For Guinea, and especially for the Church in Guinea, the future is truly in the balance.
Elizabeth Kendal
Links
1) GUINEA: Ethnic tensions threaten to explode in southeast.
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) 7 July 2004
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=42067
2) GUINEA: Dozens arrested after ethnic clashes in south-east.
IRIN 24 October 2005
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=49722
ALSO
WEA Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin - No. 351 - Wed 02 Nov 2005
GUINEA: BAPTISM SERVICE VIOLENTLY ATTACKED
3)
4) ICG Stopping Guinea's Slide.
Crisis Group Africa Report No 94, 14 June 2005
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3509&l=1
5) GUINEA: Opposition throws hat into ring for local elections
CONAKRY, 31 Oct 2005 (IRIN)
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=49850
Subj: Guinea: Future in the balance.
To: World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty News & Analysis
From: WEA RLC Principal Researcher and Writer, Elizabeth Kendal.
---------------------------------------------------
GUINEA: FUTURE IN THE BALANCE
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Nzerekore is located in the Forest Region of southeastern Guinea, West Africa, close to where the borders of Liberia, Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire meet. In the words of Major Algassimou Barry, the Prefect (government administrator) of Nzerekore and the surrounding district, "We're at the heart of a region in turmoil." (July 2004, Link 1)
BAPTISM SERVICE ATTACKED IN NZEREKORE
On Wednesday 19 October, a Christian baptism ceremony in the Gonia neighbourhood of Nzerekore was attacked by Muslims who were complaining that music from the church was disturbing their prayers in a nearby mosque. Ten people were injured, two seriously, and several houses were sacked. The Muslims rioted again on the Friday evening and razed a local video store. Elite soldiers, known as Rangers, had to be deployed to restore calm. Several guns were confiscated and a curfew was imposed. Over the weekend (22-23 October) some 100 people were arrested, with 56 still detained. (Link 2)
The Christians belong to the Guerze ethnic group which has a long history in the Forest Region of southeastern Guinea. Most Guerze practise Christianity or African Traditional Religion (ATR). The Muslims are Konianke, a sub-group of the Mandingo (also known as Malinki or Mandinki) people who have been Muslim since the 13th Century. The Konianke, who are traditionally nomadic traders, migrated south from northern Guinea during the late nineteenth century when Guinea was under French rule and the French had established a colonial administration in the Forest Region.
Ethnic-religious violence had previously erupted in Nzerekore on 16 June 2004 when, according to the US Department of State Human Rights Report 2004, "a Guerze youth on a motorcycle collided with a crowd leaving a mosque". Of the 238 people arrested, 234 were Konianke and 90 percent were Liberian. Two people died in that clash, but the toll would have been much higher had the Guinean security forces not moved so quickly to quell the fighting. (Link 1)
The incidents in Nzerekore arise out of several much larger issues: the ethnic tensions created by Mandingo southward migration; the religious tensions created by Muslim migration into regions historically populated by settled Christian and Animist tribes; the ethnic and religious superiority complex of many of the Mandingo Muslims, and the proliferation of weapons, bored ex-combatants and entrepreneurial criminals and soldiers for whom "war is more lucrative than peace".
Clearly, the Forest Region of southeastern Guinea must be viewed as a potential flash-point for future, major ethnic-religious conflict. Attention must be given to this region now, before disaster strikes and spreads like shock-waves.
ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS TENSIONS
The ethnic and religious tensions in the Forest Region of Guinea are similar in many ways to the ethnic and religious tensions that have manifest themselves around the wider region and all along Africa's ethnic-religious fault-line. Migration by Muslim tribes, into regions long inhabited and farmed by non-Muslim tribes, has created competition for land and resources. Increasingly over the past decade, religious tension has been exacerbated by the revival of Islamic zeal and orthodoxy. This has caused Muslim intolerance and anger to escalate in proportion to Muslim feelings of both superiority and victimhood. Once violence erupts it is virtually impossible to prevent it taking on a religious dimension. The main threats to peace come from Islamists stirring up feelings of Muslim supremacy and inciting conflict; and provocation by those who profit (financially or politically) from conflict. The primary needs are good governance, justice and disarmament.
Twelve months ago WEA RLC released a News & Analysis posting on ethnic-religious violence in Monrovia, in neighbouring Liberia, which touched on many of the same issues. Likewise, many of the WEA RLC posting concerning neigbouring Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) over the past 3 years, and on the religious violence in Plateau state, central Nigeria, have dealt with the same issues.
The main difference in Guinea, when compared to the above mentioned nations, is that in Guinea, Christians are a very small minority (less than 5 percent) in a country that is more than 85 percent Muslim, making the Christians even more vulnerable.
"LIBERIA, THE LURD AND GUINEA'S FOREST REGION" (ICG)
Thrown recently into this pot of simmering ethnic-religious tension is the most dangerous ingredient of all: a large quantity of armed, bored, exiled Muslim Liberian ex-rebel fighters. Guinea's support for Liberian rebel groups has come back to bite it.
In an excellent report entitled "Stopping Guinea's Slide" (June 2005), International Crisis Group (ICG) looks at the Forest Region as a potential flash-point where conflict could have dire consequences. ICG warns: "For some time, both Guineans and Guinea-watchers have been worried that a conflagration in the Forest Region could spark a generalised meltdown throughout the country." (ICG report: Link 4)
There is considerable documentary evidence that the government of President Conte in Guinea trained, armed, funded and gave refuge to Liberian rebels fighting against the government of Liberian President Charles Taylor during the Liberian War. ICG maintains "LURD fighters trained at the Kankan and Macenta military bases and were armed by the government from 1999 if not 1998." (ICG report, p 21)
ICG notes that 80 percent of Liberian refugees are Mandingos who are unwilling to return to Liberia where they feel they are not accepted and are regarded as 'foreigners'. But as ICG also notes, "A similar dynamic exists in Guinea, primarily in Macenta and N'Zerekore prefectures, where tensions between Forestier peoples, who consider themselves the original settlers, and Mandingoes, who are considered strangers, as in Liberia, are very high." (p 21)
The tension has been stretched to crisis levels in recent years because, since peace was brokered in Liberia in August 2003, many hundreds of LURD rebels have moved across the border into the Forest Region of Guinea where they can blend in amongst the thousands of Liberian refugees and find protection amidst their fellow Konianke Muslim brothers and sisters. Tension is further exacerbated by the fact that Taylor was from the same ethnic group as the non-Muslim peoples of Guinea's Forest Region.
The UN's Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) reported in July 2004, "Residents in Nzerekore said the town was packed with hundreds of Liberian gunmen made idle by a peace agreement which ended 14 years of civil war in their own country in August last year. 'The town is full of them, everybody knows that,' a local human rights activist in Nzerekore told IRIN. '...we know that they're still carrying their weapons and that they help their brothers the Konianke when the disputes explode between the two [Konianke and Guerze] communities,' he said." (Link 1)
The ICG adds a further layer to this situation. Under the sub-heading "LURD and the lost Mande Empire" (p 21), ICG explains that between 1905 and 1915, African warriors menaced the Manenta and Nzerekore prefectures and the wider region, preventing the French, English and American-Liberians from claiming control of the region.
LURD emerged in the Forest Region and is made up primarily of Mandingoes. The Mandingo fighters have a strong sense of history. They not only remember the warriors' dominance of the region in the early 20th Century, but they also remember and long for the days of the great Mali (or Mande) Empire (14th to 17th Centuries), when the Mandingoes, the founding fathers of Mali, controlled trans-Saharic trade from the Middle East to West Africa. According to ICG, "These [LURD] fighters sometimes talk about their longer-term mission being the restitution of a glorious Mandingo empire."(p 21)
ICG also notes that for many, "war is more lucrative than peace" (p 15). According to ICG, the military "has entrenched interests in pillage". ICG claims the military is involved in cross-border trade and in regional arms flows, including to the rebel "Forces Nouvelles" in Cote d'Ivoire (p 19). But as ICG notes, what usually starts out as a simple economic interest, can develop into serious security problems.
FUTURE IN THE BALANCE
Only months after the Liberian war ended, ICG released a report on the possible consequences for Guinea. It was entitled, "Guinea: Uncertainties at the End of an Era". (Africa Report No 74. 19 December 2003). ICG commented, "The large number of weapons and irregular combatants circulating in this region is one of the principal elements of concern. These armed groups with their unpredictable allegiances could serve the interests of politico-military elites who seek to create disorder and or to take power by force."
The June 2005 ICG report claims that today many LURD former combatants in Guinea are angry, believing that Conte has abandoned them. Also, in Liberia there are both pro- and anti-Guinean forces actively recruiting ex-combatants. ICG even comments that it is difficult to understand why no attacks have yet materialised. (p 21,22)
In the midst of this, Guinea is approaching a period of political uncertainty. President Conte is critically ill, there is no obvious successor, and the nation is soon to hold its first local elections for 10 years. On Sunday 18 December, Guineans will be able to vote for majors and rural councils in an election that will be seen as a test of the country's democratic reform process.
IRIN reports, "Guinea, where more than half the population lives on less than a dollar a day, has been ruled by Lansana Conte since he came to power in a 1984 coup. But his ill health and the lack of a clear successor in either the government or the opposition have led to worries that a dangerous power vacuum is looming.
"In its [June 2005] report, [International] Crisis Group said that disaster could only be averted if both the opposition and the international community engaged fully in the reform process, starting with these critical municipal elections. They will largely determine the quality of Guinean democracy. If they fail, the presidential succession will likely be disastrous." (Link 5)
After decades of Marxist, pro-Islamic persecution of the Church, there is now religious freedom in Guinea, which is 85.4 percent Muslim, 9.7 percent African Traditional Religion (ATR), and 4.7 percent Christian. Operation World reports that the Guinean Church has embraced mission and in the past decade indigenous workers have begun witnessing cross-culturally to previously unreached people groups. The Guinean Church is growing. But many analysts fear that Guinea is "primed for instability" (IRIN), and heading for a crisis. IRIN reports that diplomats and aid workers have long worried that the Forest Region is "a powder keg waiting to explode". For Guinea, and especially for the Church in Guinea, the future is truly in the balance.
Elizabeth Kendal
Links
1) GUINEA: Ethnic tensions threaten to explode in southeast.
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) 7 July 2004
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=42067
2) GUINEA: Dozens arrested after ethnic clashes in south-east.
IRIN 24 October 2005
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=49722
ALSO
WEA Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin - No. 351 - Wed 02 Nov 2005
GUINEA: BAPTISM SERVICE VIOLENTLY ATTACKED
3)
4) ICG Stopping Guinea's Slide.
Crisis Group Africa Report No 94, 14 June 2005
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3509&l=1
5) GUINEA: Opposition throws hat into ring for local elections
CONAKRY, 31 Oct 2005 (IRIN)
http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=49850