The most senior security and defence figure in Bangladesh has been accused of using military intelligence agents to abduct and interrogate people to settle a business dispute involving his wife.

The allegations have been made against Major General Tarique Ahmed Siddique, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s security adviser who has effective control over the country’s armed forces and intelligence agencies. 

General Siddique is considered one of the most influential members of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government and a very close personal ally; his brother is married to the Prime Minister’s sister, Sheikh Rehana. His niece is the UK Labour member of parliament, Tulip Siddique.

The claims against General Siddique are being made by a former army officer and one-time business associate, Colonel Shahid Uddin Khan who is currently living in self-exile in the United Kingdom.

Khan claims that three employees of his business in the capital city Dhaka were abducted by what appeared to be state security officers in January.

The families of the missing men have all confirmed to Al Jazeera that they have not been seen or heard from since they were first taken, over twelve weeks ago.

Al Jazeera has also obtained documents that appear to confirm Khan’s allegations.

Khan alleges that nine months earlier, the same three men – along with another employee – were picked up from his Dhaka offices and secretly held at the military intelligence agency, the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI).

That incident happened one day after Khan wound up a company jointly owned by the security chief’s wife, Shaheen Siddique, who was its chairperson.

The firm, Prochhya Ltd, had been trading since 2009 and was involved in several profitable land deals.

Prochhya’s company registration reveals that not only was General Siddique‘s wife a director but so was his brother, Zamal Shafi (until 2012) and his two daughters Noorin Tasmia and Bushra, both of whom live in the UK.

Khan was the company’s chief executive officer and his wife and two children were directors.

“[Siddique] did not want to keep any evidence that she was in business with us,” Khan alleges. “They thought that this government may change, and if the government changes, I would put her in a problem.”

Bangladesh’s national security head is said to have intervened personally in June 2017 when he flew to the UK and met Khan to press him to urgently close the company.

Khan claims that during that meeting the spy chief warned him that his wife was furious, saying: “Please do it [close the company] as soon as possible.”

Khan duly closed the company but he claims that events then took a more serious turn.

His staff gave sworn statements of how in April 2018, a day after Prochhaya was wound up, Siddique‘s wife had warned them that she would visit their offices.

Shaheen Siddique never arrived, they claim, but a dozen men under the command of two retired army officers entered the offices and took hard drives and financial files relating to Prochhya as well as documents relating to Khan’s other businesses.

The men’s testimony describes how the offices were scoured by the group, who broke cabinet locks, carried away 27 boxes of material and removed recordings from the office CCTV system.

All four said they were driven to General Siddique‘s official government house where the boxes of seized material were unloaded.

They say they were then driven to DGFI headquarters where they were held, blindfolded, and interrogated about Khan’s businesses. Two of the men say their lives were threatened. They were all released after 48 hours.

Now three of the men who were abducted last April, Johirul Haque Khandaker, Korshed Alam Patwari, and Sayed Akidul Ali, have once again disappeared.

Witnesses have told Al Jazeera that in the early evening of January 13, Korshed and Akidul were taken from Akidul’s house by about 20 men, many armed and wearing the black uniform commonly worn by the paramilitary organisation, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). Johirul was seen in one of the abductors’ cars parked nearby.

Efforts by the families to discover their whereabouts have failed and they fear for their own lives too. Khan believes that his family and staff are the subjects of a campaign of harassment and intimidation.

Days after this second abduction, the police raided Khan’s house in Bangladesh claiming that he was a suspect in “anti-state and anti-government activities” and filed a criminal case alleging that Khan, his wife and his three disappeared staff are all involved in “terrorism”. He says all the charges are false.

The recent raids, abductions and criminal cases took place just weeks after UK lawyers filed a complaint on behalf of Khan threatening legal action against General Siddique, his wife, and Bangladesh’s intelligence agency.

In a statement to Al Jazeera, the DGFI “strongly denied” the claims made by Khan and said it was not involved in the “alleged incidents”.

The DGFI accused the former colonel of directing his employees “to hide themselves so that investigating authorities cannot interview them.”

The security agency also claims that Khan has been involved in “controversial activities”, which are “detrimental to military environment and security”, including the “embezzlement of properties”.

Khan has denied all of these allegations.

General Siddique and his wife have not responded to requests for comment from Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit.

Bangladesh has been criticised by human rights groups for failing to stop the rising number of illegal, secret detentions, many involving opposition figures who never reappear.

In a report published in 2017, Human Rights Watch found that at least 90 people were abducted in 2016 by law enforcement agencies in the South Asian nation.

The bodies of 21 of the missing were later found. Human rights researchers accuse the DGFI of being one of the state agencies responsible for enforced disappearances.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has dismissed calls by human rights groups for action on state abductions and she has remained loyal to General Siddique, who controls the country’s intelligence agencies.

Image: lili sams / mashable

Image: Vicky Leta / Mashable

Beirut, Lebanon – In January, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went on a diplomatic mission to scuttle Syria’s readmission to the Arab League. On Thursday, he is expected in Lebanon, where he is set to target another one of Iran’s allies, Hezbollah.

Pompeo is scheduled to hold talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and is expected to ask him to make greater efforts to shield Lebanese policies from Iranian influence – while knowing that that may be hard to achieve since Hezbollah has three appointees in Hariri’s cabinet and, along with its allies, controls 70 of the 128 seats in parliament.

Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut (AUB), described Hariri as a “lame duck” and said that neither the US nor its ally Saudi Arabia should expect him to deliver, even as they continue to back him as a Sunni counterbalance to Shia Hezbollah.

Saudi Arabia and Iran have been vying for hegemony over the Muslim world since Iran’s 1979 revolution. Lebanon, home to both Shia and Sunnis, became an extended theatre for this rivalry.

“Pompeo’s visit comes soon after Iran’s foreign minister’s. He simply wants to say the US is not abandoning Lebanon just because Hezbollah is mighty strong,” Khashan told Al Jazeera.

Hezbollah has supporters across Lebanon and has become a part of the social fabric of the country since its establishment in the 1980s. It is also the strongest military faction in Lebanon.

In Syria, it supported the Syrian government in its fight against opposition forces and expanded its own and Iran’s influence in the region.

While the US, Israel and Gulf nations have banned Hezbollah in its entirety as a “terrorist organisation”, the European Union – with the exception of the United Kingdom – has designated only its military wing, not its political arm.

A major part of Pompeo’s visit will be devoted to warning Hezbollah. Local media reported that he is coming with a “list of conditions” that Lebanon must deliver on to curtail Hezbollah and, by association, Iran’s influence, if it wants to continue to receive US support.

Hanin Ghaddar, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that the clues to Pompeo’s intentions in Lebanon could be gleaned from last week’s visit by David Satterfield; the acting US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs.

Satterfield did not meet President Michel Aoun, Hezbollah’s Christian ally in Lebanon. Even as local media quoted sources in the US embassy citing lack of time, it insinuated that the oversight carried a political message.

Ghaddar, an expert on Lebanese-US relations, said: “The visit is to let Hezbollah’s allies know that the US can also sanction them. It is time to start warning them and letting them know that an alliance with Hezbollah has a price. As Lebanon’s economy crumbles, Lebanon must want America on its side.”

Fresh sanctions?

A few days before the visit, Hezbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah called on the group’s supporters to donate money to support their activities, saying that Western “sanctions and terror lists are a form of warfare” against the group. Experts said that pointed to the effectiveness of the sanctions imposed on Iran and Hezbollah.

Sami Nader, a political analyst, said that Pompeo might announce future plans to sanction more entities linked to Hezbollah. In February 2018, shortly before his predecessor Rex Tillerson visited Lebanon, the US sanctioned six individuals and seven businesses connected to the group.

The idea behind the sanctions was to target Hezbollah’s financial network at the same time as Iran was under increasingly debilitating sanctions. The double whammy was intended to hit funding for the group’s activities.

“I can see Pompeo threatening more sanctions on his visit because we are witnessing an increase in sanctions by the US in general,” Nader said.

Ghaddar said that the US government sees its active sanctions policy as working to its benefit.

“The sanctions are working for the United States’s interests in the region and we can expect more to be imposed on Hezbollah. But we do not know when that is going to happen. I suspect a threat could be made during Pompeo’s visit,” she told Al Jazeera.

However, according to AUB’s Khashan, Hezbollah has numerous sources of income and the sanctions do not hurt the group as much.

“Hezbollah is not part of the international monetary system. At the most, they might not have received as much cash from Iran because of the pressure of sanctions on Iran,” he said.

General Elias Farhat, a former officer with the Lebanese Army, agreed with Khashan. “The only way to contain Hezbollah is by talking to them,” he said.

A brief thaw

The US sees Hezbollah as an arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in the region. However, under the administration of former President Barack Obama, the US engaged with Iran and, experts said, also with Hezbollah.

Nader said that as part of Obama’s vision for the region, US officials met Hezbollah in Cyprus. However, he added, in the current atmosphere, talking to Hezbollah is “not on the table” for the US.

US policy in the Middle East was reversed under President Donald Trump, whose administration is pursuing a harsh anti-Iran agenda, more in line with the wishes of the US’s traditional regional allies in Riyadh and Tel Aviv.

Ghaddar said that there was a debate raging within the US as to whether Washington should stop providing aid to Lebanon’s military.

The US has given the Lebanese army $2bn since 2005 as well as providing training and cooperation worth millions more. It is expected to give an additional $350m this year.

However, Ghaddar pointed out that this aid gives the US some leverage in a country otherwise under Iran’s sway.

“The US must continue to provide aid to the Lebanese armed forces while putting in place monitoring mechanisms to check that the money is not syphoned away by Hezbollah,” Ghaddar told Al Jazeera.

General Farhat disputed this argument, saying that the aid is used only by the army. But acknowledged that the army has worked alongside Hezbollah on some operations.

“The US must give aid to fight terrorism. [The] Lebanese Army and Hezbollah together fought back ISIS [ISIL] and al-Qaeda affiliates in Arsal on Lebanon’s border with Syria. What else are they expected to do?” Farhat said.

Most analysts agree that the US has few options to counter the group, least of all inside Lebanon. If challenged, Hezbollah has proven that it can bring the country to a halt in a matter of hours.

In 2008, as the government ordered the shutdown of Hezbollah’s telecommunications network and sought to remove Beirut Airport’s security chief over alleged ties to the group, Hezbollah fighters seized parts of Beirut and forced the government to reverse its decision.

However, the US seems determined to fight Hezbollah by imposing its own pressure on the Lebanese government and the group’s domestic allies by threatening sanctions and making it clear that its support does not come for free.