Danger in Bangladesh: "On August 17, there were 459 bomb blasts all across Bangladesh, in 63 of the 64 districts, within a space of 30 minutes. In the leaflets, in Bangla and Arabic, found with the bomb devices, Jama'atul Mujahideen, Bangladesh, which was banned on February 23 this year, said: 'It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh. There is no future with man-made law.' (from the Daily Star)In the 64th district, Munshiganj, where there were no bomb blasts, 120 bombs were seized by the police on the next day ((source)

The bombs injured around 150 people and killed two; their intention seems to have been not to kill but a show of strength.

This map makes the point quite clear.

Meanwhile, Taliban-like forces terrorize the country-side. (e.g., this The young man's feet were tied to a tree, his head dangling inches above the ground. A microphone was held to his mouth while he was tortured so that the villagers who were not present to witness the 'trial' could hear his screams.
The first to hear them were the men in uniform who did not stir from the police station, not far from the tree. The screams rose and fell till the man was dead.
Their mission accomplished, the killers issued fresh warnings to villagers against straying from the Islamic way, swore their loyalty to Bangla Bhai and left the scene.
The incident is one of about 500 cases of killing and torture by Bangla Bhai's armed Islamic bands that were documented by Taskforce Against Torture, a human rights group founded in Bangladesh three years ago.

Indian retired police officer,now commentator KPS Gill writes:



Today, the Islamists, led by the Jamaat-e-Islami, who collaborated with Pakistan in the atrocities of 1971, as well as Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence, are again firmly entrenched in the country's politics, its Government, and crucially in its institutions of education and mass culture.

The coordinated series of 459 explosions within a single hour across 63 of Bangladesh's 64 districts on August 18, 2005, was little more than the visible tip of the menacing iceberg that threatens this luckless country. All societies that foster terrorism have eventually themselves fallen prey to this scourge.

Bangladesh cannot be an exception, though the country's political leadership has sought to cover up the realities of state complicity with flat denials of state support to extremism and terror, even as they have sought to mask the steady spiral towards thuggish Islamist extremism, lawlessness and disorder.

Indeed, the falsification has gone well beyond the state. A wide range of international institutions and foreign Governments have contributed directly to the deception, speaking in glowing terms of Bangladesh's arguable 'successes' in development, in health sector reforms, in population control, and in non-governmental sector operations, all of which have been projected as examples for other developing countries to follow.

The truth of the comprehensive political mischief and administrative mismanagement in Bangladesh has systematically been brushed under the carpet.
This truth is now becoming increasingly difficult to conceal, even in the most prejudiced circles, and despite the state's relentless policy of suppression of the national Press and of denial of access to the international media.

It is significant in this context that an independent study carried out by Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace, which drew up a listing of 60 of the world's failed and failing states on the basis of twelve specific 'indicators of instability', placed Bangladesh at the 17th position, among the 20 'critical' states that are most at risk.

There is, unfortunately, no evidence of any visible transformation in the trajectory of politics or of the orientation of the state in Bangladesh, despite the country's growing difficulties.

A vigorous American response is necessary to keep Bangladesh from becoming another jihad factory."

(Via TPMCafe - main.)