Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen ("Assembly of Mujahideen--Bangladesh", abbreviated: JMB; ) is a terrorist organisation operating in Bangladesh. It is listed as a terror group by Bangladesh, India, Malaysia and the United Kingdom. It was founded in April 1998 in Palampur in Dhaka Division by Abdur Rahman and gained public prominence in 2001 when bombs and documents detailing the activities of the organisation were discovered in Parbatipur in Dinajpur district. The organisation was officially declared a terrorist organisation and banned by the government of Bangladesh in February 2005 after attacks on NGOs. But it struck back in mid-August when it detonated 500 small bombs at 300 locations throughout Bangladesh. The group re-organised and has committed several public murders in 2016 in northern Bangladesh as part of a wave of attacks on secularists.
The JMB was believed to have contained at least 10,000 members, and have an extensive network of organisations, including connections to legal Islamist organisations. Six of the top leaders of JMB were captured by the RAB security forces in 2005. After being tried and convicted in court, on the evening of 29 March 2007, four were executed by hanging for the killing of two judges and for the August 2005 bombings.
In two separate incidents in 2015, it was discovered that JMB had been receiving financing from officers at the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka. Visa Attache, Mazhar Khan, was caught red-handed at a meeting with a JMB operative in April 2015, who said that they were involved in pushing large consignments of fake Indian currency into West Bengal and Assam. Second Secretary, Farina Arshad, was expelled by Bangladesh in December 2015 after a JMB operative admitted to having received 30,000 Taka from her.
An offshoot of the group, the Neo-Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, effectively operates as the ISIL in Bangladesh.
Ideology
The JMB's aim is to replace the government of Bangladesh with an Islamic state based on Sharia Law. It has explicitly stated on more than one occasion that it opposes the political system of Bangladesh and ostensibly seeks to "build a society based on the Islamic model laid out in Holy Quran and Hadith." The organisation follows the ideals of the Taliban of Afghanistan. Its chief has been quoted as stating that "our model includes many leaders and scholars of Islam. But we will take as much (ideology) from the Taliban as we need." It opposes democracy as being in violation of Sharia or Islamic law.
It also opposes socialism and its avowed objective is to neutralize left-wing extremists, especially cadres of the Purbo Banglar Communist Party (PBCP). JMB also is opposed to cultural functions, cinema halls, shrines and NGOs. In another leaflet it said, "We don't want Taguti (non-Islamic) law, let Qur’anic law be introduced. Laws framed by humans cannot persist and only the laws of Allah shall prevail."
They have claimed responsibility for several violent attacks and bombings. JMB's communiqués reveal a Salafist doctrine that is common across international radical Islamist organisations. A 2005 leaflet proclaimed: We are the soldiers of Allah. We have taken up arms for the implementation of Allah's law the way the Prophet, Sahabis and heroic Mujahideen have implemented for centuries. If the government does not establish Islamic law in the country after this [third] warning and, rather, it goes to arrest any Muslim on charge of seeking Allah's laws or it resorts to repression on Alem-Ulema, the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen [JMB] will go for counteraction, Insha Allah.
Several captured members of the group have claimed that their targets include traditional Bangladeshi cultural and non-government organisations such as BRAC, Proshika, and Grameen Bank. Leader Abdur Rahman is alleged to have taught JMB operatives that "it is not a sin to loot valuables of Grameen Bank, BRAC, Proshika, Asa and Caritas as they encourage women to shed the Burqa (veil)."
Activities
On 20 May 2001, 25 petrol bombs and documents detailing the activities of the organisation were discovered and eight of its members were arrested in Parbatipur in Dinajpur district.
JMB is believed to have been involved in an explosion of seven bombs on 13 February 2003 at one of its hideouts. They had been preparing to use them in northern Bangladeshi towns during International Mother Language Day.