US wants to help Bangladesh fight extremists, Biswal tells PM Hasina

The United States wants to help Bangladesh in its fight against militants and extremists.

Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal repeated the offer in a meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office on Thursday.

The prime minister’s press secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed reporters on the meeting. 

The US could offer expertise and technical support in combating terror, said Biswal, while discussing a series of killings in Bangladesh by suspected extremists, including that of USAID officer and gay-rights activist Xulhaz Mannan. 

She advocated community policing and ‘better understanding’ between the two countries in fighting terror. 

Prime Minister Hasina told Biswal that Xulhaz and the others victims of such killings were ‘soft targets’ and the attacks were being executed in cold blood to cause a ‘sensation’.

She asked the US to share with Dhaka any information it might have on terror plots. 

Previous governments in Bangladesh had allowed the country’s territory to be used for planning terror but her government, she said, had a zero tolerance for such activities. 

“The law enforcers at that time were forced to assist these terrorists,” she said, criticising the coalition government by BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami.     

US Secretary of State John Kerry had telephoned Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, demanding justice for slain ‘colleague’ Xulhaz, murdered in his Dhaka apartment along with his friend Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy by a group of machete-wielding attackers.

He told her about sending Biswal, who arrived on Wednesday, to take forward counter-terrorism efforts.