Rohingya rebels trained JMB men

Investigators glean it from Boma Mizan; Huji too received training from the RSO
Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) had close links with Rohingya Solidarity Organisation (RSO), an insurgent group in the Myanmarese state of Arakan, JMB explosives expert ‘Boma Mizan’ revealed in interrogations.
Sources close to Rab interrogators said Mizan and some other JMB operatives received training from RSO arms experts in a camp near Myanmar border in 2002.
Now executed JMB chief Shaekh Abdur Rahman sent them for the training. In exchange for arms training, JMB’s explosives experts trained RSO men to improvise and detonate bombs and grenades.
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (Huji) Bangladesh, another outlawed Islamist outfit, too had strong connections with RSO.
Officials from the police, Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and some intelligence agencies have been interrogating Mizan, who is on a seven-day remand after being captured by Rab on May 14.
The sources said JMB military wing’s former chief Ataur Rahman Sunny and activist Galib are among those trained by arms experts of the Rohingyan outfit.
Sunny was executed in March 2007 along with five other militant kingpins including his brother Abdur Rahman and JMB operations commander Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai. Galib is behind bars.
“Mizan said their training from RSO was conducted somewhere in Chittagong hill tracts and lasted 10 days. He did not give anymore details,” an investigator told The Daily Star in return for anonymity.
Mizan and the others, who took training from RSO, later trained JMB operatives across the country, said the investigator.
Shaekh Abdur Rahman himself would used to liaise with RSO. He would also maintain ties with Huji.
Some persons claiming to be former Huji men told this correspondent that in the late 80s and 90s many of their fellow operatives took arms training from Rohingya rebels.
They said the RSO men trained the Huji operatives in greater Chittagong, particularly in deep forest of the hill districts.
RSO had some make-shift camps for their shelter and training. A good number of RSO-trained Huji cadres went to Arakan to fight for the Rohingyas, they added.
Sources said Huji took RSO help in securing weapons as well as funds. The Rohingyan group had extensive supplies of arms, and for funds it would count on a number of Muslim-majority countries especially those in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, an investigator said Mizan had taught around 25 JMB operatives how to make and set off bombs.
He received explosives training from JMB bomb expert Shakil alias Mollah Omar.
Omar got killed in a shootout with Rab and three of his family members in explosions meant to resist the raid on their hideout in Comilla town on March 13, 2006.
He was trained by Shaekh Rahman, who had received training in explosives from militant organisations in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Courtesy of The Daily Star