Bangladesh has a number of organized & lavishly funded fundamentalist militias and a government that yields to their pressure on all matters.
Understandably, there has been growing concern over the possibility of Bangladesh becoming a country like Afghanistan under Taleban rule.
Addressing a press-conference in Dhaka on 5th September 2004, Joseph Cofer Black, the US State Department's coordinator for counter-terrorism, who was visiting the country in wake of the attack on Awami League's rally on 21 August, affirmed that USA was looking at Bangladesh's role as a terrorist platform.
Many would, however, scoff at the suggestion that a shift might be under-way from Afghanistan to Bangladesh, arguing that the situation in Bangladesh today is very different from Afghanistan in 1994 when the Taleban emerged.
Bangladesh is a far more developed country than Afghanistan. It has a vocal and assertive civil society supported by an active and secular intelligentsia. More important, it is a Muslim country with a significant degree of religious tolerance, where women play important roles in the country's social and economic lives.
Related Link > Radicalism in Bangladesh
Via Bangladesh-Blogger
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