Editorial Desk :The United States is interested in exploring the option of armed Bangladeshi private security personnel ensuring security of US officials in Dhaka. The US, which is worried about the safety and security of its officials in Bangladesh, following the brutal murder of its staff Xulhaz Mannan, will raise the issue of deploying private security forces in the upcoming fifth Partnership Dialogue between the two countries scheduled in Washington on June 23-25, as per reports of a local daily. We do not want to see wrong kind of cooperation to grow between Bangladesh and the US. On ISIL, the US Ambassador Marcia Bernicat in Bangladesh the other day said that terrorism is a global threat, therefore its presence is global and there is no need to talk about where an organisation is or is not. “ISIL has global reach and can be everywhere thanks to the internet,” she said, adding that the two governments have agreed that it is a global threat and they have to work on it globally and jointly.The US Ambassador here should know that ISIL has no existence in Bangladesh and our terrorism is our creation. We expect high ranking US government officials to make proper assessment of the situation. Our situation is not an immediate threat to the world, but Bangladesh is sliding into a crisis of terrible violence and human rights violations which must be contained politically. Don’t make ways for outside terrorists to come into Bangladesh. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ISIL, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is a Salafi jihadist militant group that follows an Islamic fundamentalist, Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. Although it was formed in 1999, it took over 12 years for the group to establish itself – and that too, because it was associated with Syrian rebels who were fighting to free their country from the tyranny of President Bashar al-Assad. Despite world plans of domination – as detailed in a map in 2014 — after over two years it still remains in control of parts of Syria and Iraq – with populations of over 2.8 million people. It is wrong to treat them as having a world reach. Whatever these terrorists claim, their power base is war and chaos fuelled, willingly or not, by global powers in the Middle East. Most Muslim leaders do not treat them as Muslims – they are brutal terrorists with no respect for Islam. They do not practice Islam. They are a greater threat to the Muslims, doing greater harm to Islam. They grew up in cruel war torn conditions of the Middle East and they should be buried in the Middle East. They have killed more Muslims, raped Muslim women and given Islam a bad name. We firmly believe that the Western countries must not play into the hands of enemies of Islam. President Obama is very right that the West must not make Muslims feel that the West hates them. The ISIL and other extremist groups using Islam are being encouraged to be a force by enemies of Islam. They are exploiting some genuine grievances the Muslims have against the Western countries for their blind support for Israel and allowing Israeli government to treat the Muslims of Palestine and Gaza brutally as a colonial power. It is a grave mistake for the Western countries not to understand that the government of Israel has become power-drunk for being too much pampered. The West must pursue forcefully to reach the Palestinian solution. IS is not a global threat though they want to be seen like one and claim credit for any act of terrorism taking place anywhere. Their claims of smuggling over 5000 fighters in Europe with the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in 2015 and 2016 were proven to be false – indeed their real organisational capability seems to be to make ghastly videos of inhuman executions. Most importantly Muslim leaders must be engaged more visibly and more unitedly behind the Western move to finish IS and likes of IS in the Middle East.But do not support state terrorism by way of fighting imaginary global terrorism. That will mean supporting state terrorism for the rise of new dictators in countries struggling for democracy. We repeat that the cruel activities do not make ISIS a global threat and conclude by quoting from the statement of an eminent former US Ambassador to Bangladesh, Dan W Mozena as he remarked: “A moderate, tolerant, democratic country, Bangladesh, the world’s seventh most populous country and third largest Muslim majority country, is a viable alternative to violent extremism in a troubled region of the world.”
