Author: Suman K Chakrabarti
Publication: NDTV
Date: June 15, 2003
URL: http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template=Alqaida&slug=Bangladesh+confirms+recovery+of+uranium&id=39253&callid=1
The Bangladeshi Atomic Energy Commission
has confirmed that a football-shaped package recovered by the country's
police last month near its northern town of Patnitala contains semi-processed
uranium.
While this material can be used
for making a "dirty bomb" or charging up conventional explosives to cause
extensive damage, Indian intelligence officials fear that the package had
apparently reached Bangladesh via West Bengal and had been stored in a
safe place by an Islamic radical group with close links with Al-Qaida.
The arrest of four activists of
the Jamait-ul-Mujahideen, a new Islamic radical group, particularly active
in northern Bangladesh, which is dangerously close to the borders of India,
has sent alarm bells ringing.
The Bangladeshi police arrested
these men in Puiya village of Naogaon district on May 30.
Sources in the National Security
Intelligence, Bangladesh's internal intelligence agency, told NDTV that
the package came from two Indian nationals who had crossed the border just
south of Balurghat in West Bengal's South Dinajpur on the morning of May
26.
Al-Qaida presence
In the last three months, at least
17 activists of the Jamait-ul-Mujahideen have been detained for distributing
posters audio and video tapes of Osama bin Laden in Arabic and Bengali.
If the Al-Qaida is trying to procure
raw material for producing crude nuclear bombs or charging up conventional
explosives with nuclear components, Bangladesh might just be the right
place to store them.
With American intelligence presence
at an all-time high in Asia monitoring Islamic radical activities after
the Bali Bombings, Bangladesh is one Islamic country that has escaped American
attention, though Islamic radicals have periodically staged anti-US demonstrations
in Bangladesh and expressed their solidarity with Osama bin Laden.
In November 2002, the Border Security
Force says that they had recovered an empty uranium leather casing with
Khazakastan marking on it in South Dinajpur.
Bangladesh's four-party Islamic
alliance led by Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has stridently denied
charges of Al-Qaida presence in the country, though reports in the western
press and Indian media have regularly surfaced about the presence of bin
Laden's men in the country.
Intelligence sources even indicated
that bin Laden's deputy, Aymaan Al Zawahri was there in Bangladesh.
With the recovery of 225 grams of
semi-processed uranium, Begum Khaleda Zia's government will be hard pressed
to explain the motive behind the Jamait-ul- Mujahideen, which enjoy close
links with BNP's partner Jamait-e-Islami, for importing the uranium.
