Intelligent Security Solutions Limited Frontier & Emerging Markets Analysis

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Bangladesh: Militancy, 2016 - the true value of

early warning combat indicator identification

Following the April 2016 media release that ISIS had appointed „Sheikh Abu Ibrahim al-

Hanif‟ as their Emir for Bangladesh and the subsequent June media release that their Emir

was in fact a Tamim Chowdhury formerly of Windsor, Canada, ISS Risk

received inquiries from several different quarters asking the following questions: Does ISIS

truly have an operational presence in Bangladesh? What is the potential for in-country

organic growth of ISIS in 2016? Wasn't the intelligence community aware of this Emir before

April 2016? What does this threat trend genuinely mean for the security and financial risk

environment in Bangladesh in 2016?

By January 2016 ISS Risk had already provided our clients detailed analysis regarding the

appointment of this Emir, his true identity and Canadian-Bangladeshi background and

equally importantly had already provided forward looking analysis for 2016 on the

importance of this appointment and what it meant for Bangladesh‟s immediate and longer

term security and political risk landscape.

Intelligent Security Solutions Limited Frontier & Emerging Markets Analysis

©ISS Risk 2016 Page | 2

Our strong network of in-country and regional sources had enabled us to provide our clients

with critical analysis four and six months ahead of respective media releases, or as an Asia

based CIO put it to us “not have to react with the herd T+93 into 2016 when the news first

broke on the wires”.

Please see this extract from ISS Risk‟s January 2016 Special Report („The Growth of

Militancy and ISIS in Bangladesh‟): “The current operational head of ISIS in Bangladesh is a

dual Canadian-Bangladeshi citizen – let us call him "Mr TAC" for the purposes of this Report

… As the operational chief, Mr TAC is entrusted with the responsibility of developing an ISIS

network within Bangladesh and also to act as a conduit between pro-ISIS elements inside

the nation and the ISIS leadership in Syria … It is our assessment that Mr TAC was actually

appointed as the leader of ISIS in Bangladesh, most probably as such an appointment would

had given him at once both sufficient authority to deal with and the right to command the

different jihadist factions in Bangladesh.” Mr TAC being Tamim Chowdhury.

Now in June we release our second Special Report on Bangladesh which provides

equally candid intelligence and forward-looking analysis on the growth of militancy and ISIS

in Bangladesh.

Please download for free the Executive Summaries of our January and June 2016

Special Reports on Bangladesh and click 'Follow' on ISS Risk here on LinkedIn for

more updates.

ISS Risk: http://issrisk.com/research/

[ISS Risk Infographic: ISIS and ISIS affiliates attacks to date]