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Massacre in Dhaka
| Wall Street Journal | - |
Not
a month has passed since Islamic State killed 49 people at an Orlando,
Fla., nightclub, and less than a week since it murdered 45 at the
Istanbul airport, and now Islamic State is taking credit for another
slaughter.
Massacre in Dhaka
Islamic State spreads among South Asia’s huge Muslim population.
ENLARGE
Bangladeshi policemen inspect the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's Gulshan area, Bangladesh on July 3.
Photo:
Associated Press
As usual with Islamic State, this attack was distinguished by savagery and propaganda. Seven terrorists stormed the cafe Friday night and demanded that patrons recite verses of the Quran. Those who failed—including nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Indians and possibly one American—were tortured and hacked to pieces. The killers then spent the night posting their atrocities on social media and lecturing Muslims on Western moral pollution. Six of the seven were killed when authorities stormed the cafe the next morning, and one was captured.
Police quickly identified the attackers as Bangladeshis, mostly well-educated and from wealthy families. So much, once again, for the theory that poverty and hopelessness are the cause of terrorism. Islamic State is a religious and ideological movement of Muslim fanatics.
The attack also made nonsense of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s failure to acknowledge that international jihadists are recruiting and carrying out terrorist attacks in Bangladesh. As we noted last month (“Bangladesh and the Jihadists,” June 16), Ms. Hasina’s administration has sought to pin blame for the murder of 40 secular activists, intellectuals and religious minorities over the past three years on Islamists connected to the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
That has resulted in the arrest of thousands of BNP activists in security sweeps. But the government has mostly missed the rise of such local jihadist groups as Ansar al-Islam, also known as Ansarullah Bangla Team, which use social media to radicalize young, middle-class men and are believed to have links to terror groups abroad.
Given the sophistication of the assault on the cafe, we wouldn’t be surprised to learn that at least one of the attackers had spent time with Islamic State in Syria or Iraq. Five of the attackers were already on a wanted list, meaning the government is at least beginning to look in the right places. Another 120 Islamists were arrested in a sweep last month.
Bangladesh has made significant economic strides by becoming a global hub for the garment industry. Killing foreigners who work for that industry—several of the Italians killed Friday were garment entrepreneurs—is no doubt part of Islamic State’s strategy of making the Muslim world a no-go zone for tourism and investment. That’s all the more reason for Bangladeshi authorities to be clear-sighted about the nature of the expanding threat they face.
The Dhaka attack is also a reminder that Islamic State is spreading globally at a much faster rate than the U.S. is defeating it in its Syrian and Iraqi heartland. Two more Islamic State bombs targeting families and young people killed at least 115 in Baghdad on Sunday. The jihadist threat is global and growing, and it cannot be adequately fought, much less won, until an American President is honest about the danger.