Bangladesh’s Director General of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) Major General Jahangir Alam took an April 20 Qatar Airways flight from Dhaka for Washington DC where he is scheduled to meet US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers, documents accessed by Northeast News show.
Maj Gen Alam’s four-day visit, which was planned as early as early March this year, comes less than two weeks after his return from Spain, where he met a host of intelligence officers from other countries, including Turkey and Pakistan.
Maj Gen Alam was accompanied for the Washington DC visit by Bangladesh’s Counter Terrorism Intelligence Bureau head Brigadier General Syed Anwar Mahmud. A third officer, a lieutenant, from the Bangladesh Army’s Ordinance Division, is part of the team. The Bangladesh Foreign Ministry and the embassy in Washington DC have been notified of the visit.
The spouses of the two officers took the same flight – first to Doha and then onward to the US capital. The three officers and their family members took Qatar Airways flight number QR-639 for the first leg of their journey.
Documents accessed by Northeast News show that Maj Gen Alam’s meeting with CIA officers would primarily be in the nature of a “briefing,” which Bangladeshi security agency sources said would primarily be on the impending operations in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
Hours after the departure of team led by Maj Gen Alam, Bangladesh’s newly appointed National Security Advisor Khalilur Rahman met the Principal Staff Officer, Armed Forces Division, Lieutenant General Kamrul Hassan, National Security Intelligence (NSI) head Maj Gen Sarwar Farid, Border Guards Bangladesh DG Maj Gen Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui and Coast Guard DG Rear Admiral Ziaul Haque.
The meeting discussed the current situation of Bangladesh’s land, mountainous and maritime borders, besides the recent activities of the Rohingya refugees and the Arakan Army.
Northeast News had earlier reported that the Bangladesh Army would play a central role in the military operations to be fronted by a coalition of forces, including the Arakan Army, the Chin National Front and, in all likelihood, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).
Maj Gen Alam’s Washington visit comes close on the heels of the visit to Dhaka of three US State Department officials, including US Charge D’Affaires in Naypidaw, Susan Stevenson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Nicole Ann Chulick and Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Andrew R Herrup.
This three-member team, which arrived in Dhaka on April 16, brought together a large number of staff who visited key locations in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and Cox’s Bazar two days ago.
In this context, it is noteworthy that the Bangladesh Army had in February this year earmarked a large parcel of land in Silkhali mouza (on the Bay of Bengal coast), 30 kms north of Teknaf, where a supply and logistics base is to be built before the Arakan Army launches its military operations against three key townships in the Rakhine State – Sittwe, Kyaukphyu and Manaung.
These three townships continue to be held by the Myanmar military junta forces and will be the main targets of the Arakan Army’s offensive. The Myanmar military forces enjoy the advantage of air power.
The Bangladesh security establishment, Khalilur Rahman, is on an overdrive as far as the impending operations in the Rakhine State are concerned. Two days ago, Rahman met the 10th Division General Officer Commanding Major General Mohammad Asadullah Minhazul Alam.
The timing for the launch of the military offensive in the Rakhine State could be a key element of Maj Gen Alam’s briefing. Bangladesh and Myanmar experience prolonged monsoons between May and August, when military operations would be sluggish and counter-productive.
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A more likely time, Bangladeshi security analysts said, could be September when the rains subside, but much depends on how the coalition of disparate elements – Arakan Army, the CNF and the ARSA – is brought together as a fighting force.
