On a near-daily basis, Bangladesh's Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia condemns Islamic militancy and vows to hunt down the suicide bombers who have been holding her nation to ransom.
'They are conspirators. They are killing people. They must be fought to the end,' she thundered at a rally of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in Dhaka last month. 'We have gone a long way in our fight against the perpetrators of recent bombings.
'Today, I ask the security forces to capture the remaining bombers and their masterminds. We will soon crush them all.'
But Haroon Habib, one of Bangladesh's most respected political analysts, doubts whether the premier can be taken at face value. 'Going by politicians' speeches, it seems as if extremists are on the run and their armed campaign is fizzling out. But this is not the case - not by a long shot,' he said. 'Bangladesh is headed for a long civil war between secular and fundamentalist forces if the government does not get its act together.'
Begum Zia and Home Minister Lutfozzaman Babar say more than 800 militants have been rounded up and more than 180 cases filed against members of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), the two outfits banned for unleashing suicide bombers who have killed 30 people since the first attacks on November 29.
But even they admit there is no trace of Sheikh Abdur Rahman, the shadowy Afghan war veteran heading JMB, or the equally elusive JMJB supremo Bangla Bhai.