Al-Qaida Branch in South Asia Claims Role in Killings

The leader of al-Qaida's branch in the Indian subcontinent has published a video claiming responsibility for the killing of Avijit Roy, an atheist Bangladeshi-American blogger who was killed by a group of men with machetes on Feb. 26 as he was leaving a book fair in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

In a nine-minute video posted on jihadi forums Saturday, the leader of the branch, Asim Umar, said followers of his group were responsible for the killing of several people he called "blasphemers": Mohammad Shakil Auj, an Islamic scholar fatally shot in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2014; Aniqa Naz, a Pakistani blogger; Rajib Haider, a blogger killed in a machete attack in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, in 2013; and Roy.

"They have taught a lesson to blasphemers in France, Denmark, Pakistan and now in Bangladesh," Umar said in the video, which was translated and published by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity online.

He went on to urge his followers to carry out more attacks, saying, "Where are those who would kill these blasphemers, wherever they may be found, even if it has to be done using a dagger or a knife, and by doing so record their names on the Day of Judgment among the devotees of the prophet?"

The killings of Haider and Roy were part of a series of attacks on bloggers and academics who campaigned against conservative Islam in Bangladesh.

Both men were involved in the 2013 Shahbag movement, which called for the death penalty for Islamist political leaders who were implicated in atrocities committed during the 1971 war for independence from Pakistan. The movement was met with a backlash from Islamist activists, deepening a divide over whether Bangladesh should be an Islamic nation or a secular one.

Though Roy was killed in a crowded area, the police have arrested only one person in his death: Shafiur Rahman Farabi, who called in a Facebook post for him to be killed, but who is not believed to have been present during the attack. Seven university students and the head of a hard-line Islamic group, Ansarullah Bangla Team, were charged in March with killing Haider, who had written critically of Islam on his blog.

Another blogger, Oyasiqur Rahman, was killed in a similar machete attack last month, but Umar made no mention of that crime in his address.

Umar also announced the death of a Bangladeshi fighter in a drone strike in the Afghan-Pakistani region by "the same powers that expressed solidarity with the blasphemers by participating in the long march in Paris," a reference to the march joined by many international leaders after the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

In September, the leader of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahri, released a video announcing the establishment of the branch on the Indian subcontinent, saying it intended to revive jihadi activity in a region that was "part of the land of Muslims, until the infidel enemy occupied it and fragmented it and split it."