By Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has long institutionalized the use of jihadist organizations as instruments of foreign policy. In recent months, credible intelligence assessments suggest that the ISI, in coordination with its principal proxy organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), is preparing a new wave of terrorist attacks targeting India. Preliminary information indicates that these operations are designed to coincide with India’s Republic Day celebrations on January 26, 2026, with particular focus on West Bengal.
This emerging threat underscores Pakistan’s enduring reliance on asymmetric warfare to destabilize its neighbors. It also highlights the growing danger of transnational jihadist collaboration between Pakistan and Bangladesh – a development that could significantly alter South Asia’s counterterrorism landscape.
Targeted operations in West Bengal
According to intelligence sources, ISI and LeT operatives are plotting a coordinated series of attacks aimed at key urban centers in West Bengal, including Kolkata. Notable potential targets reportedly include the Victoria Memorial and the Kalighat Kali Temple – both high-visibility sites of symbolic and cultural significance.
The use of gel-based improvised explosive devices (IEDs) has been discussed within operational channels as a means to evade conventional detection systems. Such materials are difficult to trace and can be easily assembled using commercially available chemicals, suggesting the involvement of technically trained operatives.
This pattern aligns with LeT’s historical emphasis on both symbolism and psychological impact in its operations – seeking not only to inflict casualties but also to project an enduring sense of insecurity among civilian populations.
Recruitment of technocrats and the evolving LeT strategy
The ongoing investigation into recent explosions in Delhi revealed the arrest of several individuals, including medical professionals, found in possession of significant quantities of potassium nitrate and other explosives. However, emerging intelligence suggests that LeT’s recruitment network has expanded its scope beyond religious seminaries to include technically trained individuals, particularly chemical engineers.
These recruits have reportedly been tasked with constructing and maintaining sleeper cells in strategic zones across West Bengal and Nepal, often under the cover of legitimate businesses or professional engagements. The inclusion of such technically proficient cadres represents a shift in LeT’s operational architecture – from ideological fanaticism alone to a hybrid model combining technical expertise with jihadist ideology.
Bangladesh as an emerging safe haven
Recent developments in Bangladesh have introduced a new variable into South Asia’s counterterrorism equation. Since the 2024 rise of the Muhammad Yunus regime, Dhaka’s policies toward Pakistan have undergone significant reorientation, generating serious security concerns among regional intelligence agencies.
LeT’s founder Hafiz Saeed has historically maintained strong networks in Bangladesh through Islamist figures such as Mufti Harun Izhar and Ansar al-Islam leader Mufti Jashimuddin Rahmani. These linkages, once under strict scrutiny, now appear to be reactivating under favorable political conditions.
Of particular concern is the reported entry of Ibtisam Elahi Zaheer, a senior member of Pakistan’s Markaz-e-Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith and a long-time associate of Hafiz Saeed. Zaheer entered Bangladesh on October 25, 2025, allegedly taking advantage of the weakened regulatory framework and the pro-Pakistan disposition of the current government.
Policy reversals facilitating infiltration
The strategic environment in Bangladesh has shifted dramatically following a series of administrative and regulatory changes introduced between September and October 2024. A gazette notification issued by the Yunus government directed customs authorities to exempt shipments from Pakistan from mandatory inspection under the “National Selectivity Criteria”.
In parallel, Dhaka also eliminated post-landing inspections for Pakistani consignments and security clearance requirements for Pakistani nationals applying for Bangladeshi visas. Confidential communications from Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicate that diplomatic missions were instructed to suspend all intelligence clearance procedures for Pakistani citizens – effectively dismantling long-standing security barriers introduced in 2019.
These policy reversals collectively open a wide channel for illicit activity, including the trafficking of narcotics, explosives, and weapons. They also facilitate the entry of Pakistani extremists and criminal syndicates, directly undermining Bangladesh’s internal security and posing a broader threat to India’s eastern border.
Pakistan’s transnational strategy
Pakistan’s status as a state sponsor of terrorism is well-documented in global security literature. However, the current permissive environment in Bangladesh allows Islamabad to extend its proxy infrastructure eastward, creating an operational bridgehead for ISI activities. Intelligence assessments suggest that Bangladesh is being repositioned as a secondary staging ground for Pakistani terror networks.
Ibtisam Elahi Zaheer’s movement across sensitive border districts – particularly Rajshahi and Chapainawabganj – is consistent with this pattern. His presence in these regions, long associated with cross-border smuggling and extremist activity, has triggered alarms among both Indian and Bangladeshi intelligence agencies.
Zaheer’s ideological profile adds another dimension of concern. In 2012, he publicly endorsed violence against apostates and denounced Jews and Christians as enemies of Islam. His inflammatory sermons have drawn international criticism, and several UK-based organizations – including the Umm Ul Quora Foundation (Bradford), Al Hikmah Project (Keighley), and Makki Masjid (Manchester) – were investigated by the UK Charity Commission for hosting him. These associations underline his role as a transnational propagator of Salafi-jihadist ideology.
Reactivation of Salafi networks
Analysts view Zaheer’s recent activities as part of a broader Salafi coordination initiative between Pakistani and Bangladeshi extremist groups. This coordination is often facilitated under the pretext of religious conferences, scholarly exchanges, and madrassa events – activities that provide both legitimacy and logistical cover.
In addition to the logistical dimensions of the Lashkar‑e‑Taiba (LeT)-Inter‑Services Intelligence (ISI) axis, the ideological and clerical elements of Pakistan’s Islamist ecosystem are also being extended into Bangladesh. Notably, Maulana Fazlur Rehman- a notoriously anti-US individual and leader of the Jamiat Ulema‑e‑Islam (F) (JUI-F) – has arrived in Bangladesh to participate in a “Khatme-Nabuwat” conference scheduled for 15 November in Dhaka’s Suhrawardy Avenue.
During the event, he is expected to demand that the Ahmadiyya community be declared “non-Muslims” and to mobilize Muslim participation in “jihad against the enemies of Islam”, with additional engagements to take place in the Sylhet border region and other Bangladesh–India adjoining areas. This development must be understood in light of Rehman’s documented record of deploying Islamist clerical narratives – his 2011 speech, for instance, warned of “western forces pushing people toward extremism”.
Fazlur Rehman is accompanied by other Islamist leaders including Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, Maulana Asad Mahmood, Maulana Saeed Yousaf, and Mufti Ibrar Ahmed.
The overlap of high-visibility religious event participation with cross-border mobilization close to India’s frontier raises serious concerns about the export of Pakistan-based extremist ideology via Bangladesh, which complements the ISI-LeT tactical thrust discussed above.
Within Bangladesh, this coincides with a visible resurgence of extremist discourse and Salafi mobilization since the 2024 regime transition. Reports from local intelligence sources point to an increase in terror financing, radicalization in madrassas, and the proliferation of Salafi literature encouraging jihadist interpretation.
The free movement of known extremists within the country, especially in districts adjacent to the Indian border, indicates both an erosion of state vigilance and the emergence of a permissive space for transnational terrorist collaboration.
The India connection and cross-border implications
Zaheer’s second visit to Bangladesh within a six-month period underscores the persistent nature of this reactivation effort. On October 30, 2025, Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Saifullah Saif publicly declared during the Defense Companions and Wahlibat Conference in Khairpur Tamiwali that Hafiz Saeed’s senior aide was operating from “East Pakistan” (a term deliberately used by Pakistani hardliner jihadists to refer to Bangladesh) – and was preparing to “push jihad into India”.
Within hours of Saifullah’s address, coordinated terror incidents occurred in New Delhi. While causality has not been officially established, the temporal proximity between these statements and the attacks suggests possible operational linkage.
For India, this signals an evolving threat environment where Pakistan’s terror infrastructure may exploit Bangladeshi territory to launch attacks from the east – complicating India’s traditional counterterrorism posture that has largely focused on threats emanating from its western frontier.
Policy implications and recommendations
The reactivation of ISI–LeT networks through Bangladesh signifies a critical shift in South Asia’s terrorism matrix. The convergence of ideological, logistical, and political factors has created a transnational ecosystem conducive to jihadist expansion.
The ISI–LeT nexus remains the most destabilizing factor in South Asia’s security architecture. With Pakistan actively leveraging its ideological networks in Bangladesh, the region faces the prospect of a renewed wave of cross-border terrorism. The alignment of extremist elements across Pakistan and Bangladesh not only threatens India’s national security but also endangers the stability of the entire subcontinent.
Unless immediate and coordinated countermeasures are implemented, the ISI’s eastward expansion could transform Bangladesh into a new logistical hub for jihadist operations – thereby extending Pakistan’s strategic reach and reconfiguring the terrorism landscape of South Asia.
(The writer is an award-winning journalist, writer, and Editor of the newspaper Blitz. Views expressed in the article are his own)
