On Trip to Bangladesh, Subway Bomb Suspect Reached Out to Refugees
- 6 years ago
On Trip to Bangladesh, Subway Bomb Suspect Reached Out to Refugees
18, 2017
DHAKA, Bangladesh — Before Akayed Ullah returned home to New York from his native Bangladesh,
and tried to blow himself up with a pipe bomb in a crowded Manhattan subway station, he had one last thing to do — an all-night bus ride by himself to help Rohingya refugees.
In September, around the time Mr. Ullah was passing out tablets of acetaminophen, stomach salts and other basic drugs in the camp, Al Qaeda issued a call to arms, urging Muslims to bring the Rohingya "money, medicines, food, clothing, weapons" and to use their "souls and wealth" to "rescue their brothers." It is not clear if Mr. Ullah was responding to
that specific call; investigators in Bangladesh said he was closely following several jihadist websites.
Maybe he hadn’t assimilated so well." Hasan Rafique, a former member of an Islamist group now trying to work against militancy, said the Rohingya camps
that Mr. Ullah visited were now prime recruiting territory for several Bangladeshi and Pakistani militant groups.
that You need to find out who.
For decades, Bangladesh, a poor, almost purely Sunni Muslim country of 160 million people, has been fighting a shape-shifting terrorism problem
that has taken the form of highly coordinated bomb attacks — more than 400 in one day, in one hour — to slicing up young bloggers with machetes.
Was Mr. Ullah following Al Qaeda, who had just urged Muslims to deliver medicine —
and weapons — to the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group whose members have been raped, brutalized and massacred in neighboring Myanmar?
18, 2017
DHAKA, Bangladesh — Before Akayed Ullah returned home to New York from his native Bangladesh,
and tried to blow himself up with a pipe bomb in a crowded Manhattan subway station, he had one last thing to do — an all-night bus ride by himself to help Rohingya refugees.
In September, around the time Mr. Ullah was passing out tablets of acetaminophen, stomach salts and other basic drugs in the camp, Al Qaeda issued a call to arms, urging Muslims to bring the Rohingya "money, medicines, food, clothing, weapons" and to use their "souls and wealth" to "rescue their brothers." It is not clear if Mr. Ullah was responding to
that specific call; investigators in Bangladesh said he was closely following several jihadist websites.
Maybe he hadn’t assimilated so well." Hasan Rafique, a former member of an Islamist group now trying to work against militancy, said the Rohingya camps
that Mr. Ullah visited were now prime recruiting territory for several Bangladeshi and Pakistani militant groups.
that You need to find out who.
For decades, Bangladesh, a poor, almost purely Sunni Muslim country of 160 million people, has been fighting a shape-shifting terrorism problem
that has taken the form of highly coordinated bomb attacks — more than 400 in one day, in one hour — to slicing up young bloggers with machetes.
Was Mr. Ullah following Al Qaeda, who had just urged Muslims to deliver medicine —
and weapons — to the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group whose members have been raped, brutalized and massacred in neighboring Myanmar?