SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW

Hazaras: Intensifying persecution

As reported on June 11, the Taliban instructed the Hazara residents of Nowabad, located in the 6th Security District of Ghazni city, the provincial capital of Ghazni, to submit their land ownership documents to the group. The Taliban issued eviction orders, claiming the area had been “usurped” by the residents.

On March 6, 2023, the Taliban forced the Hazara residents of Pusht-e Asmidan village in Al Badr District, Sar-e Pul Province, to leave their homes and evacuate the village. They also imposed a fine of AFN 36 million on the residents of this village, as most of them are from the Hazara community.

Taliban established a “Commission for Prevention of Usurpation and Recovery of Government Lands” in 2023. This Commission, in various provinces, registers government lands under the name of “Emirate Lands”. Earlier, in October 2021, the Taliban forcibly expelled hundreds of Hazara families from provinces of Helmand, Balkh, Daikundi, Uruzgan, and Kandahar.

In addition to forced evictions, Hazaras have been targets of violent attacks. According to partial data collated by Institute for Conflict Management, at least 113 Hazaras have been killed and 25 injured, in 11 incidents since August 15, 2021 (data till June 16, 2024).

Some of the recent incidents include:

On April 29, 2024, a gunman stormed the Shia-Hazara Imam Zaman Mosque in the Guzara District of Herat Province and opened fire on worshippers killing six, including a child.

On April 21, 2024, IS-KP claimed responsibility for a magnetic IED attack targeting a bus carrying mostly Hazara civilians near a security checkpoint in Kabul, killing one and injuring 10.

On January 11, 2024, two people were killed and 12 wounded in a grenade explosion outside a commercial center in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood, a Hazara enclave in Kabul city.

On 6 January, 2024, a minibus with civilians was attacked by the IS-KP in the Dasht-e-Barchi areas of Kabul, killing five people and injuring 15.

According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) report, Human Rights Situation in Afghanistan, released on January 22, 2024, targeted attacks against Hazaras persist in various parts of Afghanistan. In the months of October and November 2023, at least 5 separate attacks against Hazaras were planned and carried out. UNAMA’s Annual Report, 2023, however, is silent on the wider persecution of Hazaras in Afghanistan.

In addition to physical violence leading to death and severe injuries, Hazaras are also subjected to multiple forms of discrimination and restrictions, affecting a broad-spectrum of human rights. According to the Freedom House’s Country Report on Afghanistan, dated June 5, 2024:

“The emirate authorities imposed multiple restrictions on the 2023 commemoration of the month of mourning, Muharram. Mourners were told to avoid public displays of religious symbols and rituals, and mourning ceremonies were only to be held in select places of worship designated by the Taliban. Shias widely defied these restrictions, resulting in clashes with the authorities.”
After their return to power in August 2021, the Taliban soon resumed their anti-Hazara campaign. On August 18, 2021, the Taliban blew up the statue of Hazara leader Abdul Ali Mazari in Bamiyan province. Mazari had been killed by the Taliban in 1995, during their first regime. In December 2022, the United Nations called on the de facto Taliban authorities to respect the rights of minorities, specifically mentioning places of worship and education facilities, and singled out the Hazaras as a community ‘facing heightened risk’.

There are no official estimates of how large the Hazara population is, as a national census of the population has never been undertaken. Estimates suggest that the Hazara community has diminished significantly due to oppression and torture. They are variously estimated to comprise between 4 per cent and 10 per cent of the population.

Hazaras speak a dialect of Dari (Farsi) called Hazaragi and the vast majority follow the Shia sect (Twelver Imami) of Islam. A significant number are also followers of the Ismaili sect. A large number of Hazaras live in Hazarajat (or Hazarestan), the ‘land of the Hazara’, situated in the rugged central mountainous core of Afghanistan, in the Bamiyan province and in cities such as Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif. Small concentrations are also found in the Badakhshan, Jowzjan and Badghis provinces. Ismaili Hazaras, a smaller religiously differentiated group of Hazaras, live in the Hindu Kush Mountain region.

Hazara women suffer from the selective Taliban policy of identifying ‘bad hijab’. On January 11, 2023, the UNAMA expressed concern about the “arbitrary arrests and detentions of women and girls” over hijab. UNAMA documented the arrest of women in Kabul and Daikundi provinces and was “looking into allegations of ill-treatment and incommunicado detention, and that religious and ethnic minority communities appear to be disproportionately impacted by the enforcement operations.” The release process of these women reportedly required a mahram (male guardian) to sign a letter guaranteeing future compliance or else face punishment. The Taliban’s restrictions have far-reaching implications, especially on the mental health of Hazara women who are already dealing with the trauma of long-term conflict and targeted attacks.

The Ministry of Higher Education under the Taliban also published a decree in 2023, ordering the removal of all books belonging to the Shia sect or written by Shias, Salafis and the political opponents of the Taliban, deemed different from the Hanafi jurisprudence. The group also banned marriages between Shias and Sunnis. The formation of the provincial Ulema Councils in various provinces also had no Shia or female members.

There have also been attacks on Hazara schools. For instance, on 30 September 2022, an attack at the Kaaj Education Centre in Dasht-e-Barchi killed more than 60 Hazara students and injured over 100, mostly female.

In repeated acts of desperation, Hazaras have migrated to the neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Iran over the years. They have also migrated to countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom in search of a peaceful, secure and better life. A May 18, 2024, report indicates that, since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Hazaras have fled their home country to seek asylum in Indonesia as well. As of February, 2023 there were some 12,710 registered refugees with the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) in Indonesia, just more than half from Afghanistan, and most of these, Hazaras. The Hazaras have started a refugee learning centre – Cisarua Refugee Learning Centre (CRLC) – at Cisarua, Bogor Regency, south of Jakarta. There are at least seven such refugee-led learning centres in Bogor, which serve some 1,800 children, as well as three in Jakarta and one in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

The Hazara people are experiencing persecution and violence in Afghanistan at the hands of political rulers and as well as terrorist organization, particularly the Islamic State, Khorasan Province. The Freedom House Country Report 2024 noted, for instance, “ISKP has continued its campaign of violence against the Hazara community. Mass casualty attacks against Hazaras included improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at a Shia mosque in Pol-e-Khomri in October 2023, at a west Kabul sports club the same month, and a commuter bus in west Kabul in November.

The Hazaras are not only a religious, but also an ethnic minority in a country currently obsessed with Sunni-Pashtun dogma. With a deeply regressive and militant religious-ideological group currently in power in the country, they have been viciously persecuted, with little, if any, recourse for justice. As the Taliban hardens its purported ‘Islamic regulations’, which see the Hazaras as a deviant group, such persecution can only worsen.

JAFHS: Emerging Challenge

On May 16, 2024, the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) arrested Abdur Rahim, who supplied arms and ammunition to the Jamatul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya (JAFHS), from the Gazipur District of Dhaka Division. Following his arrest, CTTC chief Mohammad Asaduzzaman disclosed that a subsequent operation in the Naikhongchhari Upazila (Sub-District) of Bandarban District led to the recovery of a foreign pistol, nine locally-made firearms, and bomb-making chemicals and equipment.

On May 14, 2024, three operatives of JAFHS, including its ‘chief recruiter’ identified as Rana Sheikh, aka Amir Hossain, and two of his associates, Habibur Rahman and Moshiur Rahman aka Milan Talukder, were arrested by the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Detective Branch (DB) at the Kallyanpur bus stand area in Mohammadpur in the Dhaka District of Dhaka Division. The DB chief said that, during the arrest, three smartphones and two button phones were seized, containing videos of militant training and records of money sent to the Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA).

According to South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) database, 70 JAFHS operatives have been arrested since the formation of the outfit in 2017, while five operatives have surrendered. Further, JAFHS linked violence has resulted in one (terrorist) fatality when, on January 14, 2023, JAFHS cadres killed a fellow operative due to an internal dispute, in Bandarban District.

JAFHS was formed in 2017 by former members of three banned militant organizations in Bangladesh: Ansar Al Islam, Neo-Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (Neo-JMB), and the Bangladesh chapter of the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami – (HuJI-B) . The formation of this outfit was planned in jail by leaders of the three groups, who had been arrested years earlier. The group adopted the name Jamatul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya or JAFHS in 2019. Two years later, after the group established itself, its leaders teamed up with the separatist Kuki-Chin National Front (KCNF) in Bandarban, to train their cadres in the use of assault rifles and the construction of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

JAFHS shares objectives with the parent HuJI and Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). According to the Police, the new al-Qaeda-inspired organisation is funded by Syed Ziaul Haque, the former ‘army major’ and ‘head’ of Ansar al-Islam’s military section.

The leader (Amir) of the organization is Anisur Rahman aka Mahmud. The ‘head’ of the organization’s dawat or recruiting and preaching division, is Abdullah Maimun. Masukur Rahman aka Ranbir is the ‘head’ of the military wing and a member of the group’s Shura, or decision-making body. On January 23, 2023, Ranbir was arrested in a raid by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in the Kutupalong Rohingya camp in Ukhia in Cox’s Bazar. His associate, bomb expert Abu Bashar, was also arrested in the same raid.

The RAB discovered evidence of JAFHS’s operations in October 2022, while investigating the disappearance of seven youth from the Cumilla District. A list of 55 trainees was later found, most of them students from across Bangladesh.

In January 2023, a RAB officer asserted, “With motivation, determination and combat training, Jama’atul Ansar is the biggest militant threat Bangladesh has ever faced from militants.”

On June 23, 2023, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police CTTC arrested Shamin Mahfuz, the founder of JAFHS, along with his wife, giving a blow to the outfit.

CTTC chief Mohammad Asaduzzaman revealed that JAFHS members propagated militancy by pretending to be madrasa administrators, converting non-Muslims to Islam, and teaching Islam. The group also intended to launch assaults on significant targets and figures in India, Pakistan, and Myanmar, in order to establish a caliphate in Bangladesh through armed conflict. To reach their goals, the group recruited young men, took them to the hills, and made them go through rigorous combat training, provided by KCNF.

Sources disclosed, further, that constructing a secure haven and training grounds in the hills was JAFHS strategic objective. Since it is difficult for security forces to monitor this terrain, coordination with organizations occupying the hills was necessary, as a result, rapport was established with KCNF. In 2020, a formal agreement was reached between the two organizations.

CTTC chief Asaduzzaman claimed that JAFHS leader Shamin Mahfuz had plans to set up camps in the hills while he was a student at the University of Dhaka. He began his career as a teacher at Bangladesh Open University after completing his education. He eventually enrolled at Jahangirnagar University in a PhD. program. His research study was centred on the hill country’s ethnic minorities, a subject he chose so that he could go to the highlands and establish safe havens. Asaduzzaman further stated that, during his university years, Shamin Mahfuz developed a friendship with Nathan Bowm, who is the founder of KCNF. As a result of their relationship, Mahfuz engaged in discussions with Bowm about providing weapons training to the KCNF.

Due to the affinity between the commanders of the two militant groups, an agreement was reached in April 2020 at Hotel Bay Wonders in the Kolatoli region of Cox’s Bazar between Shamin Mahfuz and the KCNF, according to an officer involved in the investigation and questioning of the arrested JAFHS members. The agreement was signed on behalf of JAFHS by Myinul Islam, alias Roxy and Shamin Mahfuz. Nathan Bowm signed on behalf of the KCNF. Shamin Mahfuz drafted the agreement. Police later recovered the two-page agreement.

According to the terms of the agreement, KCNF received Taka 300,000 a month from JAFHS for training and housing of its cadres. In addition, JAFHS covered the 150 KCNF operators’ feeding costs. The training contract ran from November 2021 to 2023. The KCNF allied with JAFHS principally for this financial benefit.

According to CTTC, 55 JAFHS operatives had received training in three batches at the KCNF camp in Bandarban. Their training was supervised by KCNF ‘chief’ Nathan Bawm. JAFHS also bought some arms (15 AK-22 rifles and shotguns) from them, after receiving training from the KCNF in their camps. Some country-made guns were also bought. According to CTTC, JAFHS even attempted to purchase AK-47 rifles through the KCNF.

Interestingly, on July 24, 2023, Director of RAB’s legal and Media Wing Commander Khandaker Al Moin revealed that JAFHS ‘Ameer’ Mohammad Anisur Rahman, who was arrested on that date from Munshiganj District, had gone to Bandarban in 2020 for training, and had developed a good relationship with KCNF cadres.

On July 24, 2023, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) legal and media wing director Commander Khandaker AL Moin disclosed that JAFHS signed a formal agreement with another militant group, Ansar al-Islam, for ‘cooperation’. According to Khandaker, “Amir (Chief) Anisur Rahman alias Mahmud signed an agreement with the leaders of Ansar al-Islam at a meeting held in Kishoregonj District in 2022. Later, Ansar al-Islam provided BDT 1.5 million to JAFHS.”

Not surprisingly, on August 10, 2023, Deputy Secretary (Political Wing) of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Mohammad Rashed Hossain Chowdhury stated that the Bangladesh Government had banned JAFHS, citing its potential threat to public safety and law and order. The notification declared, “It appears to the Government that the declared activities of the militant group/organisation called Jamaat Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya are against the peace and order of the country. As the activities of the party/organisation have already been declared as a threat to public safety, its activities in Bangladesh have been banned.”

On August 4, 2023, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) revealed that JAFHS planned to establish a naval unit in the Patuakhali District (Barisal Division) to provide refuge to any of its operatives who were dispersed and possessed military training. RAB stated that they assigned the responsibility of forming the naval unit to Kazi Saraz Uddin alias Siraz, a resident of Patuakhali who had joined JAFHS from HuJI-B. The financing for this naval unit was provided by Ansar al-Islam.

The cooperation between JAFHS and KCNF underlines a danger to Bangladesh’s sovereignty, which could spread to include other terrorist organizations with different ideologies and objectives. Although these groups had different goals in mind – to establish an autonomous ethnic zone or an Islamic state – they were united by their use of violence and their willingness to support one another with resources, infrastructure and training – taking the Government as their shared enemy.

Weekly Fatalities: Major Conflicts in South Asia
June 10-16, 2024