A Narrative on Travel Alert

Maj. Gen. Md Abdur Rashid (Retd.)

Until recently we did not witness any popular concern in our country over travel alert. Neither did we feel any impulse to know about travel alert imposed on any particular country before making a travel to the same. Neither did we experience so much of ado about travel alert sanctioned on Bangladesh by foreign countries. A few years back I made a trip to India. While travelling from Kolkata to Hyderabad, we were faced with exhaustive search. We learnt that in anticipation of terrorist attack, Red Alert had been issued. Though the security blanket spread across the length and breadth of India occasioned inconvenience, we saw spontaneous cooperation from the people. Ranging from airports to hotels, shops, recreation centres and even points of tourist interest – nothing was spared from the security search and surveillance. The fact that such a highly tense situation never cropped up in Bangladesh gave rise to a feeling of pride for being a citizen of a safer country. During my way back there was no such Red Alert, which considerably reduced the hassle. Against the backdrop of ever-changing faces of risk, many nations decline to compromise in respect of national security on the principle that “caution always pays.”

There is no warning for the western citizens to cancel or avoid visit to Bangladesh, though instead of normal caution, a high level of caution has been advised. Though the hue and cry raised in the political arena and the mass media, being taken aback by the issuance of travel alert by the western countries seemed to be in excess, it is the cancellation of tour by the Australian cricket team that triggered many rational and irrational ways of thinking.

Some of our very familiar and sensitive development partner countries have evinced their presupposition that western nationals may indiscriminately fall victim to terrorist attacks in Bangladesh. Usually the stance of western Europe and other allies of the United States goes hand in hand with the stance of Uncle Sam. The Muslim inhabited countries are known to and suspected by the western nations to be infected by terrorism motivated by radical Jihadi ideologies, and thought by them to be safe haven for such terrorism. Due to the natural depth of the existence of Jihadi ideologies, the westerners tend to be apprehensive. The westerners feel obsessed by the fear of militant attacks in their own countries and other parts of the world.

Though our foreign friends are content that Bangladesh has managed to remain free from the dreadful claws of terrorism, the dichotomy of western powers in dealing with terrorism appears startling to the developing world. On one hand, the pioneering countries of Global war on Terror are relentlessly poised on killing terrorists. In the wake of al-Qaida’s terroristic attack on Twin Tower in 2001, immediately after 17 days of the incident, the United Nations Security Council was summoned, and the counter-terrorism resolution 1373 was adopted unanimously binding all member states of the United Nations to be a part of the international bandwagon for Global war on Terror. In countries across the globe counter-terrorism laws were enacted; to prevent militancy financing, money laundering laws were formulated; to surveillance transaction of militancy financing, economic espionage unit was formed. Alongside, though many other national and international measures were taken, it was not possible to prevent the proliferation of of terrorism. Besides the unfazed mushrooming of Osama bin Laden’s terroristic outfit al-Qaeda on a global scale; on one hand, Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabaab which is al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula also known as Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Algeria, have been reinvigorated. On the other hand, being tutored and motivated by the Taliban militants, who happen to be the chief shelter provider of al-Qaeda, many such militant outfits as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have grown in the soil of Pakistan. Last but not the least, withdrawing his loyalty from Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi transformed Al-Qaeda in Iraq into the most dreaded jihadist extremist militant group in the world known as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Having conquered Mosul, the second largest city of in Iraq, they instituted their Islamic caliphate and named it the Islamic State.