Mohammad Saifullah Ozaki

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Mohammad Saifullah Ozaki
1st Emir of Islamic State – Bengal Province
In office
June 2015 – March 2019
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byAbu Muhammed al-Bengali
Personal details
Born
Sajit Chandra Debnath

1982
Nabinagar, Bangladesh
NationalityBangladeshi, Japanese
Children6
Education
(DBE)

Mohammad Saifullah Ozaki (

Hindu family in Bangladesh, Ozaki studied in Japan, where he acquired several degrees, converted from Hinduism to Islam, and eventually married and became a naturalised Japanese citizen. He was an associate professor at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto until 2015, when he and his family disappeared from the country. He was named the emir of the Islamic State in Bangladesh. He is alleged to have been responsible for promoting the Islamic State on Facebook and recruiting Bangladeshis to travel to Syria to support it, as well as plotting a terrorist attack in Dhaka. In March 2019, Ozaki surrendered to the Syrian Democratic Forces in Baghouz, Syria
. A new emir for the Islamic State in Bengal was named within two months.

Early life and education

Mohammad Saifullah Ozaki was born in 1982 as Sajit Chandra Debnath to

Islamic theology.[5]

Academic career and radicalisation

Debnath authored or co-authored over thirty papers over the course of his academic career.[3] He began teaching at Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University in 2011,[6] becoming an associate professor of business administration at the College of International Relations in April 2015.[7] His family noticed him behaving unusually as early as 2008, when he returned to Bangladesh to attend his sister's wedding, attempting to hide the beard that he had grown with a surgical mask. His last contact with his family was on 5 January 2016, when Debnath's father called him to ask about a recent police inquiry. During the call, Debnath claimed that a friend of his was framing him for funding a charitable organisation. When asked why he was funding an organisation considered "bad" by authorities, Debnath ended the call.[2]

According to his father, Debnath converted from

global caliphate, which would be done later that year by ISIL, in the form of the Islamic State.[5]

Militancy

Ozaki left Japan for Bulgaria in late 2015, and his whereabouts became unclear for a period after that.

Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif sometime around May 2015, likely because a captured Sohan and another Islamic State member revealed his identity to Bangladeshi security forces. The first part of Ozaki's kunya, Abu Ibrahim, means "father of Ibrahim", after the name of his youngest son at the time, and the second part, al-Hanif, was believed by two independent anonymous Islamic theologians to reference the concept of hanifiyyah and signify Ozaki's rejection of polytheism. This is not typical for the kunya of an Islamic State member—most make reference to nationality or ethnicity, such as al-Bengali for a Bangladeshi member or al-Yabani for a Japanese member. Soon after, in June, the central leadership of the Islamic State appointed Ozaki as emir of the Islamic State in Bangladesh, which was approved by Abu Ubaydah Abd al-Hakim al-Iraqi on behalf of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.[5] He was fired from his job at Ritsumeikan University in March 2016 due to his unapproved absence since January.[4]

During his time as a member of the Islamic State, Ozaki used Facebook to spread their ideology and financed sabotage in Bangladesh.[4] An analysis of Bangladeshi Islamic State members found that Ozaki was the "kingpin" of the Islamic State's recruiting efforts in Bangladesh, and that "most, if not all" of the group's Bangladeshi members were recruited by Ozaki himself or recruiters who served him.[5] Anonymous sources used by the Bangladeshi newspaper Prothom Alo stated that most of Ozaki's Bangladeshi recruits heading to Syria had studied at cadet colleges in Bangladesh.[4] In an interview published by the Islamic State's magazine Dabiq in April 2016, Ozaki, identified only by his kunya, claimed that the organisation was recruiting growing numbers of Bangladeshis, and described the region of Bengal as important to the caliphate and of potential use to further its jihad into India and Myanmar. He also described an approaching alliance between Islamic State militants in Bangladesh and the Islamic State Wilayat Khurasan in Afghanistan and Pakistan, led by former Taliban member Hafiz Saeed Khan. He further called for the "[targeting] in mass numbers" of Bangladesh's Hindu minority, accusing them of wielding important power in the country, specifically alleging that they were "cow worshippers" who created "anti-Islamic propaganda".[9]

On 1 July 2016, five militants attacked a bakery in Dhaka, taking dozens of hostages, including 18 foreigners. Twenty hostages and two police officers were killed, as well as all five militants.[10] Multiple sources claimed that Ozaki was believed to be responsible for planning the attack,[5][10] although Fuji News Network (FNN) stated that Japanese media reported more on nuances such as his role in funding Islamic State as opposed to such direct accusations about his responsibility for the incident.[11] His location remained unknown, variously reported to be in Syria, Indonesia, or Malaysia.[5] He was wanted by Bangladeshi authorities along with nine other suspects for his alleged role.[7]

In March 2019, Ozaki was one of ten Bangladeshi militants to surrender to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in Baghouz, Syria after the former Islamic State stronghold fell. He was detained in the Kurdish city Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq,[10] where he remained as of May of that year.[4] FNN stated that he is the first Japanese Islamic State fighter captured in Syria.[11] A new emir of the Islamic State in Bengal, Abu Muhammed al-Bengali, was named that May.[12]

Identity of al-Hanif

While a 2017 Dhaka Tribune article identified Ozaki as having "most likely" been the individual the Islamic State called its emir of Bengal, al-Hanif, it also mentioned that a Bangladeshi newspaper had previously speculated that al-Hanif was actually

Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury in June 2016. This claim was refuted by the Islamic State in October 2016, which stated that Chowdhury's real kunya was Abu Dujanah al-Bengali and that he was the "former head of military and covert operations of the soldiers of the Khilafah in Bengal".[5] This announcement came the same month as an article by The Daily Star that identified Chowdhury, who died after jumping off a five-storey building during a raid by the Rapid Action Battalion, as al-Hanif.[13]

Personal life

Ozaki introduced his father to a female neighbour named Rina during a visit in 2006, whom Ozaki married in 2007.[2] The pair had at least six children,[a] two of whom, Muhammad and Umme, were killed in an airstrike, along with Rina. Three others, seven-year-old Isha, three-year-old Yousuf, and one-year-old Sarah were still alive and in Syria as of May 2019.[4][11] FNN later reported on 22 May that the surviving children had arrived in Japan, aided by the Japanese government.[14] FNN writer Akari Iiyama described Ozaki's Dabiq interview as expressing his anger and hate toward unbelievers. She stated that despite having lived, studied, and worked in the country, Ozaki failed to assimilate to Japanese values, instead developing an anti-Japanese ideology and ending up being responsible for the deaths of Japanese citizens, who were among the foreign nationals who died in the bakery attack.[11]

Notes

  1. Islamic prophets, the youngest being named Ibrahim.[5] Ibrahim was not mentioned by later articles by FNN and Prothom Alo describing the whereabouts of the rest of Ozaki's family as of 2019.[4][11]

References

  1. ^ Narabe, Ken; Tokunaga, Takeshi; Kiyama, Fumiaki; Takano, Yusuke (23 May 2019). "Excellent grades, turning point is Japan Ozaki suspect detained in Iraq". The Asahi Shimbun (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Family: Ozaki uncomfortable about his conversion to Islam". Dhaka Tribune. 2 August 2016. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
  3. ^ a b c "(Saifullah Ozaki) Sajit C. (Mohammad) Debnath". researchmap.jp. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Zayeef, Ahmed (20 May 2019). "Saifullah Ozaki in Iraqi jail". Prothom Alo. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Khalil, Tasneem (25 July 2017). "Meet the mastermind of the Holey attack". Dhaka Tribune. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
  6. ^ a b c "Ex-Ritsumeikan U. prof aided member of group linked to 2016 Dhaka attack: docs". Mainichi Daily News. 1 July 2017. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
  7. ^ a b "Bangladeshi who taught at Ritsumeikan among 10 suspects wanted by police over Dhaka attack: sources". The Japan Times. 21 July 2016. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
  8. ^ "Neo-Jama'at Mujahideen Bangladesh". Australian National Security. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
  9. ^ Hummel, Kristina (25 May 2016). "How Bangladesh Became Fertile Ground for al-Qa'ida and the Islamic State". Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
  10. ^ a b c "Ex-Ritsumeikan teacher, a suspect in 2016 Dhaka terror attack fatal to 22, held in Iraq". The Japan Times. 21 May 2019. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
  11. ^ a b c d e Iiyama, Akari (22 May 2019). "Japanese national terrorist mastermind arrested, why Japan has become a hotbed for the expansion of the Islamic State group". FNN (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 27 October 2023. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  12. ^ "IS threat to India, new 'emir' named in Bengal". Onmanorama. 2 May 2019. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  13. ^ "Rab claims it identified Abu Ibrahim Al-Hanif". The Daily Star. 22 October 2016. Archived from the original on 23 October 2023. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  14. ^ "Three children of a boy detained in Syria are sent to Japan. Could the man be involved in the terrorist attack that killed 22 people?". FNN (in Japanese). 22 May 2019. Archived from the original on 1 June 2019. Retrieved 30 March 2024.
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