Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Al Qaeda militants fled to Bangladesh from Afghanistan late last year, US magazine Time reported on the weekend, drawing strong denials from officials in Dhaka.
A ship carried 150 Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters and a huge supply of arms and ammunition from Afghanistan on December 21, 2001, to Bangladesh’s southeastern Chittagong Port, Time reported.
Later some of the militants had been transported to Kashmir, it said.
‘‘Indeed, one Bangladeshi newspaper last month even quoted an unnamed foreign embassy in Dhaka as saying Osama bin Laden’s number two, Egyptian Ayman Al-Zawahiri, had been hiding out in the country for months after arriving in Chittagong.’’ Time quoted an unnamed Bangladesh military intelligence agency official as saying ‘‘Al-Zawahiri is believed to have left Bangladesh in summer, crossing over the eastern border into Burma with Rohingya rebels.’’
Bangladesh’s government and the country’s biggest Islamic group both said the report, in the Time issue dated October 21, was baseless and fabricated.
