DHAKA // Al Qaeda’s recently launched franchise in the Indian subcontinent has suffered setbacks in Bangladesh and Pakistan this week with the capture and killings of top leaders.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, Bangladesh security forces arrested 12 suspected militants, including Mainul Islam, the chief coordinator of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in Bangladesh, foiling an attack planned for the end of Ramadan.
Islam’s top adviser, Zafar Amin, was also arrested in the overnight raids targeting different parts of the capital, Dhaka.
“Explosives, bomb-making materials, sharp weapons and training manuals were recovered from them,” said Maksudul Alam, a deputy director of the antiterrorism Rapid Action Battalion.
“They’ve selected a madrasa in (the northern district of) Bogra for training.”.
AQIS has claimed responsibility for the murder of two secular bloggers in Muslim-majority Bangladesh this year, including the hacking to death of Bangladeshi-born US citizen Avijit Roy in Dhaka in February.
However, the country has not been hit by a major militant attack since 2006. Thursday’s raids come after Bangladesh arrested three suspected members of ISIL, including an IT manager at a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Co in Dhaka, in March, amid growing fears that the militant group could be extending its influence in South Asia.
Meanwhile, the head of AQIS in Pakistan was among four militants killed in a police raid near the eastern city of Lahore this week, in the eastern province of Punjab, a provincial official said on Wednesday.
Shuja Khanzada, home minister for Punjab province, named the Al Qaeda leader only as “Abdali” and said that he and three other operatives were planning an attack on government figures.
The four militants were killed on Monday when Pakistani forces raided a hideout in the small town of Ferozwala, 18 kilometres north of the provincial capital Lahore.
Officials said they were acting on a tip-off when they raided the hideout and had received intelligence that the group were planning an attack on the provincial headquarters of the Intelligence Bureau, Pakistan’s civilian intelligence agency.
AQIS’s overall leader, Maulana Asim Umar, was the “mastermind of the plan,” said Shuja Khanzada, the home minister of Punjab province.
Two more militants were injured in the raid and arrested, Mr Khanzada added, saying that they had all trained in Afghanistan in an Al Qaeda camp for five months.
A huge cache of weapons was also seized, including two rocket launchers, four suicide vests and 41 hand grenades.
An Al Qaeda presence has remained in the country since the killing of top leader Osama bin Laden in a 2011 raid by US forces in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.
In recent years, Punjab-based militant groups have also deepened their ties with the Taliban, which is allied to Al Qaeda, although the province – which is the stronghold of the ruling party – has largely been spared the violence that has plagued much of the rest of the country.
Pakistan’s army has been waging an offensive against militant strongholds in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan since June last year, with many militants fleeing to other parts of the country. The army claims to have killed more than 2,700 militants and destroyed more than 800 of their hideouts.
Last September, Al Qaeda released a video announcing the establishment of a branch of the organisation on the Indian subcontinent, AQIS, saying that it wanted to revive militant activity.
* Reuters and Agence France-Presse
