Al Qaeda claims murder of U.S. activist in Bangladesh
NEW DELHI -- The Bangladeshi prime minister has vowed to hunt down and prosecute those who fatally stabbed two men, including a gay rights activist who also worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development, and accused the country's opposition party and allied militants of orchestrating the attack.
The killings Monday night were the latest in an ongoing wave of attacks claimed by radical Islamists and targeting the country's outspoken atheists, moderates and foreigners.
The banned group Ansar-al Islam, the Bangladeshi branch of al Qaeda on the Indian subcontinent, claimed responsibility in a Twitter message Tuesday for what it called a "blessed attack."
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It said the two were killed because they were "pioneers of practicing and promoting homosexuality in Bangladesh" and were "working day and night to promote homosexuality ... with the help of their masters, the U.S. crusaders and its Indian allies."
The victims were identified as USAID employee Xulhaz Mannan, who previously worked as a U.S. Embassy protocol officer, and his friend, theater actor Tanay Majumder.
Mannan, a cousin of former Foreign Minister Dipu Moni of the governing party, was also an editor of Bangladesh's first gay rights magazine, Roopbaan, and Majumder sometimes helped him with the publishing, local media said.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry condemned the "barbaric" murders, issuing a statement from Washington, D.C. that said the U.S. government would support Bangladeshi efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Police said no arrests have been made in the attack, which involved at least five young men who posed as courier service employees to gain access to Mannan's apartment building.
After the attack, a crowd in the area as well as patrolling police chased the assailants, senior police official Shibli Norman said.
"Some people chased the attackers, thinking they were robbers," but they didn't catch anyone, Norman told The Associated Press. A member of the patrol team briefly caught one of the suspects, but was injured when the suspect hit him with a sharp weapon and fled, Norman said.
A security guard working at the time said he was injured when one of the attackers hit him with a knife while fleeing.
Crime scene investigators recovered a mobile phone and bag apparently left by the attackers at the scene. The national police chief, A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque, expressed confidence the attackers would be caught.
"We have found some evidence," Hoque said. "I think they will be caught."
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina blamed religious radicals in Bangladesh, specifically the Jamaat-e-Islami group and their political allies, the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
"Everybody knows who are behind these killings," Hasina told top party policymakers in a meeting Monday night after the attacks, which came just days after an English professor was hacked to death on the street of a northwestern city.
"The BNP-Jamaat clique has been involved in such secret and heinous murders to destabilize the country," she said. She added the opposition, which opposes her brand of secular rule, was retaliating against her government for its efforts to prosecute war crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence.
The opposition denies the allegations, saying they are being scapegoated for Hasina's failures in maintaining security and placating the country's desire for Islamic rule.
The U.S. government and numerous rights groups have lambasted Hasina's government for failing to keep civil society safe. Earlier this month, the U.S. said it was considering granting refuge to a select number of secular bloggers facing imminent danger in Bangladesh.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said Monday that remained an option, while describing Mannan as a "beloved member of our embassy family and a courageous advocate" for LGBT rights, and pledging U.S. support to Bangladeshi authorities "to ensure that the cowards who did this are held accountable."
The rights group Amnesty International noted that Bangladesh considers homosexual relations a crime, making it harder for gay activists to report any threats against them.
The group's South Asia director, Champa Patel, said the latest attack "underscores the appalling lack of protection being afforded to a range of peaceful activists in the country."