Speaker Profile: Brig Gen Shahedul Anam Khan NDC, PSC (Retd.)

Brig. Gen. Anam was commissioned in the army in 1968. He attended the ˜Military Science Course at the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham, and the Army Staff College at Camberley, UK (1979). He is a graduate of the National Defence College, New Delhi, 1988 and holds a Masters degree in defence studies. He has commanded infantry battalions, the Independent Infantry Brigade, as well as held staff appointments at brigade and division headquarters at Grade II and Grade I levels.

Brig Anam served as Directing Staff at the Defence Services Command & Staff College, Mirpur. He was Director of Military Intelligence and Director of Military Operations at the Army Headquarters. He commanded the United Nations Military Observer Group as assistant CMO–Iraq and subsequently as the CMO 1990–91.He was the Director General Bangladesh Institute of International & Strategic studies from 97-2000 He regularly lectures at the NDC, DSCSC and the Foreign Service Academy.

He has several hundred articles to his credit, published in both national and international journalsmagazines.He is the joint author of, “Understanding Terrorism in South Asia: Beyond Statist Discourse”, published in 2006, “Terrorism in the 21st Century: Perspectives from Bangladesh” and “Countering Terrorism in Bangladesh”, both published in 2008.

He is currently Editor, Defence & Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star, the largest circulating daily in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

Dealing with terrorism 2020: Can there be a regional approach?

No region in recent times has been so badly affected by terrorism than South Asia. The regions experience with radicalism, fundamentalism and terrorism predates 9/11. However, with the so called war on terror the phenomenon has acquired an even greater significance since that has affected the region’s stability and progress in an even more debilitating way.

Moreover, the region will have to also deal with the inevitable fallout of the US global war on terror like it has had to the fallout of the anti-Soviet war on South Asia.

The recent terrorist attacks in Bombay, Islamabad, Peshawar, and the experience of Bangladesh in Aug 2004 and 2005, should leave no one in doubt that terrorism has acquired a global, certainly a regional, phenomenon. And there are compelling reasons for adopting a regional approach to tackle the matter. It is surprising that while the region had acknowledged the importance of the issue and the long-term implication which had been well reflected in the many instruments and protocol of SAARC dealing with terrorism, well before 9/11, the SAARC countries have failed to utilise the provisions. And this begs the question.

The paper examines the possibilities of a cooperative approach in dealing with terrorism.