Bangladesh is the latest victim of a natural disaster in which Islamists, including groups designated by the U.S. as terrorists, already have a social assistance infrastructure. The death toll from the Bangladesh cyclone has topped 500 as of this post and will climb further. Bangladesh Islamist groups such as Hizbut Tahrir, Islami Oikya Andolon, Chhatra Mukti Andolon, Islami Shasantantra Andolon, and the deadly and dangerous Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islam (which uses mobile phone technology for triggering IEDs) will no doubt provide considerable funds to assist the victims and enhance goodwill among the populace (my thanks to Animesh Roul for his posts on these groups, and see Olivier Guitta's October 1 post about Hizbut's recent growth). In May, the Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) announced that it would expand its activities to help orphans in Bangladesh, as reported here by Zachary Abuza, while the U.S. have designated the IIRO offices in the Philippines and Indonesia for terrorist financing (the U.N. later also designated those offices).
The U.N., U.S., European Commission, and other Western governments have announced aid packages. I assume we will deploy Defense Department delivery assets, as we did after the Indonesia tsunami and the Kashmir earthquake, where we were quite effective in projecting American humanitarian aid. The more we deploy those assets and the faster we deploy them, the better.