Bangladesh’s army on Thursday said it had foiled a coup attempt by retired and serving officers last month that intelligence sources said was driven by a campaign to introduce Shariah law throughout the majority Muslim country.
Army intelligence discovered that Major Ziaul Haque had fled the barracks and was contacting fellow officers and ex-officers through Facebook and by cellphone to encourage them to join the plot, Brigadier General Mohammed Masud Razzaq said.
“Specific information has been unearthed that some officers in military service have been involved in the conspiracy to topple the system of democratic governance,” he told reporters.
Photo: Reuters
He said about 16 former and active officers were involved. Some had been detained and would appear before a military court.
Bangladesh has a history of coups, with army generals running the South Asian nation for 15 years until the end of 1990.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took power in early 2009 and has since faced threats from Islamist and other radical groups.
Photo: AFP / Inter-Service Public Relations Directorate Bangladesh
A revolt in the country’s paramilitary forces in February 2009 started in Dhaka and spread to a dozen other cities, killing more than 70 people, including 51 army officers. The revolt was quelled after two days, but the country has since been shadowed by fears of further uprisings.
Sources in the army said the coup attempt was made late last month.
“The attempt has been effectively controlled and now the process is on to punish the culprits,” one military official said.
Intelligence sources said the coup attempt was fueled by a retired officer and associates in active service who were campaigning to introduce Shariah law.
Intelligence officers also said it appeared to have been planned over weeks or months by officers having close links with what they described as religious fanatics within and outside the military.
One source said the outlawed Islamist group Hizbut Tahrir had sent out a leaflet to troops saying “mid-level officers of Bangladesh army are bringing down changes soon.”
Intelligence officials said hundreds of pro-Islamist officers and soldiers had been drafted into the army in recent years and many had now reached the middle ranks.
“A band of fanatic officers had been trying to oust the politically established government. Their attempt has been foiled,” Razzaq said.
The attempted coup came at a time when the government was beginning a trial of Islamist leaders, including former Jamaat-e-Islami party chief Golam Azam.
Jammat, widely accused of opposing Bangladesh’s 1971 independence from Pakistan and having committed war crimes, is the biggest religious party in the country and have thousands of militant followers, including in the defense forces, analysts say.
Syed Ashraful Islam, general secretary of Hasina’s Awami League, said late on Thursday that the government was “determined to crush any conspiracy against the country and the government, and that those found guilty would be brought to justice.”
Addressing a rally outside Dhaka earlier this week, Hasina urged Bangladeshis to remain alert against attempts to thwart democracy in her country.
Hasina’s father and Bangladesh’s founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed along with most members of his family in a 1975 coup.
On Thursday, the prime minister said there had been almost 20 abortive coups since then in which many army officers had been killed.
“Some vested quarters are trying to cause unrest in the country and in the disciplined forces in a bid to destabilize the government and disrupt democracy,” she said, without naming one individual or group.
Political analysts said Hasina was pointing the finger at her rivals, especially the leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, who are demanding the ousting of the government. She also warned those opposing war crimes trials, which she pledged to carry out in her 2008 election manifesto.
Retired Major-General Sayed Mohammed Ibrahim, a defense analyst, said the country and its democratic structures were reasonably immune to interference.
“Today’s news about events in the army is worrying, but will not cause any damage to democracy,” he said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not