Saturday, February 28, 2009

Indian views on Hasina's BDR Challenges

Times of India thinks Bangladesh's situation is serious and speculates about involvement of Hizb-ut-Tahrir in the whole incident. It is also hinting at some DGFI-ISI connection in BDR massacre. According to the paper, the immediate dangers for Hasina are several:

First, there will certainly be short-term instability in her fledgling government specially if a concerted effort is made to weed out the rebellious elements.

Second, there is a total collapse in the command structure in BDR, specially after it's clear that at least 12 senior commanders (including the director-general and his deputy) were killed and their bodies dumped in the sewer. But more positively, the army, under Gen Moeen Ahmed, weighed in on the side of the Hasina government.

In the past few years, the army has taken great pains to cleanse its cadres of BNP loyalists, though, after Thursday, some suspect that a few of those remain. In July 2008, an internal rebellion was crushed and subsequently, many senior officers were "purged". Brigadier Amin of the DGFI was removed. General Masood, the second-in-command in the army, was also removed. Masood is a brother-in-law of Khaleda Zia's brother, and officials are now checking to see whether some of this family connection could have been used.

Indian security agencies are looking at a Pakistan ISI angle, because of a deep closeness with the BDR and DGFI. In many ways, this was a massive intelligence failure. But given the DGFI-ISI ties, could there be a different explanation, sources here wondered.

Here is the full story.

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