Music-loving professor is ISIS' latest target in Bangladesh

Continuing the spate of identical murders – unknown Islamist militants armed with machetes attacking and fleeing on motorbikes – a professor of English language was hacked to death on early Saturday morning in Bangladesh. The Islamic State affiliated group in Bangladesh has claimed the killing for “calling to atheism”.

Rezaul Karim Siddique, 58, died on the spot, near his home when he was on his way to Rajshahi University, where he taught English. The attack nearly left three deep wounds on Siddique’s neck, nearly severing his head.

The Islamic State group, in the evening, claimed responsibility for the attack by releasing a four-line statement on Amaq news agency of “assassinating a university teacher for calling to atheism”. In departure with its online propaganda strategy, the IS did not cash in on the attack. Neither did it release any further details or photos on the incident, nor did its group members or supporters sensationalize the attack.

Siddique’s family is reported to have said that the professor never spoke publicly on religion nor expressed any thoughts critical to Islam on social media. A connoisseur of Bangla music and literature, he took interest in culture and had recently set up a music school in his village Bagmara in Rajshahi district.

This is the seventh attack made by IS-affiliated group in Bangladesh and the first since the group was formally accepted by the core leaders in Syria. The 14th edition of IS mouthpiece Dabiq released earlier this month featured a detailed interview of Sheikh Abu Ibrahim al Hanif, who was introduced as the new emir of the group’s operations in Bangladesh.

In the interview, Abu Ibrahim repeatedly mentions that his group has “small number of mujahideen with limited means”, who have pledged allegiance to IS. This indicates why the group in Bangladesh focuses on targeting 'anti-Islamist’ or who it considers to be apostate individuals as against IS strategy in its other operational divisions like Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan-Pakistan and even Europe, where it concentrates on mass casualties through suicide bombings, gun battles and public beheading.

“They (IS) are desperately trying to make their presence felt and hit and run attacks like in urban areas keep them in news. They are not capable of carrying out large-scale attacks, like in Brussels or Paris, in Bangladesh,” says Tufail Ahmed, director of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) South Asia Studies Project, who focuses his research on jihadi groups and movements in the region. “Members of some local jihadi groups like Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) Bangladesh and Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) who are locally organised seems to have established contact with the main IS because they relate to its ideology of forming Caliphate.’’

This is the second attack by IS Bagmara after it claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in December on a Ahmadi mosque killing one. Bagmara in Rajshahi – bordering India across Padma river – is a stronghold of the JMB, which was banned in 2005. The top leadership of JMB, including Bagmara leader Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai, was executed in a major crackdown by Bangladesh’s security forces.

State minister for foreign affairs Shahriar Alam, in a counter-terrorism conference held in Jaipur, credited the government’s policy, which includes “engaging religious scholars to demotivate the terrorist sympathizers”. “The Religious Affairs Ministry is arranging religious gatherings to highlight the negative impacts of militancy in effectively combating Islamist extremist and terrorism,” he said.

Transnational jihadi groups like the al Qaeda and the IS are desperately seeking to expand their operations and gain a foothold in the region. The existing network of Islamist sympathizers and network of local jihadi groups has made Bangladesh an attractive territory. The top leadership of Bangladesh government has denied presence of IS or al Qaeda.

Since 2014, when al Qaeda announced its new wing in the Indian Sub continent (AQIS) and the Islamic State burst out on the scene of global jihad, Bangladesh has seen a revival in attacks by Islamist militants. Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) has pledged allegiance to AQIS and Abu Ibrahim and his men have aligned with IS. The patterns of killing adopted by AQIS and IS are glaringly similar and often overlap.

The IS had earlier targeted two foreign nationals, blown an Ahmadiya shrine killing one, and beheaded two Hindus and a Christian convert, while AQIS-ABT targeted bloggers for ridiculing or criticizing Islam. The latest in the series was law student and activist Nazimuddin Samad, who was hacked to death in the first week of April for posting comments against radical Islamists on Facebook.