State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam on Sunday ruled out the possibility of the existence of international terrorist outfit al-Qaeda in the country.
He said the government does have the mechanism to detect the sources of such activities and will be able to find out soon whether it is authentic or not.
The government will resist any kind of threat against the country, State Minister said. “The government will not be worried by such threats or calls and we will resist it,” the Minister said this while briefing the media over the issue at his Secretariat office yesterday.
Shahriar Alam also expressed the hope that the authenticity of the audio clip released by the al-Qaeda would be confirmed within the next two to three days.
“Hopefully it will be made sure within two or three days whether the audio clip was authentic,” he said.
He, however, observed that the much-talked-about al-Qaeda’s audio message against Bangladesh posted on the internet is almost similar to the anti-liberation discourse of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and expressed suspicion that the party might have some connection with it.
Posted in Jihadology.net, the message alleged thousands of people were being killed in the streets of Bangladesh for protesting the “collusion of the anti-Islam secular government with a bunch of transgressing secularists”. Asked what action would be taken against any political party if its link to the threat was found, the Minister said, “If accurate information is found against any parties, the high-ups of the government will decide on it.”
“It is not a part of the international pressure, but it may be a conspiracy,” Shahriar replied to another question if the government is considering the threat as an international pressure following the January 5 parliamentary election.
“It will take few more days to comment whether any opposition party has link to the threat,” he added.
Meanwhile, the State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said yesterday that government is investigating into alleged audio-message by Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.
While talking to the journalists at his Secretariat office he said Bangladesh was capable of handling threats posed by such terror groups.
Khan said Bangladesh’s law-enforcing agencies were coordinating with international organisations to prevent terrorism.
“We have training in counter terrorism. We can combat all forms of threat,” he said.
When asked about how the government is viewing the message the Minister said, “We are not seeing it as a threat.”
One of the reasons why the government feels confident is because people of Bangladesh will not allow terror to take root.
“The countries with such issues (Al-Qaeda activity) usually have locals who support their cause.” “But our people are with us. They don’t want insurgency, terror and Al-Qaeda in their country,” he added.
