By Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has intensified covert operations in Bangladesh, using Dawood Ibrahim’s transnational crime syndicate and the “Mohajir Regiment” to build a narco-terror network aimed at destabilizing Dhaka and expanding Pakistan’s regional influence.
For decades, Pakistan’s military establishment has viewed Bangladesh not as a sovereign neighbor but as a lost territory that slipped from its grasp in 1971. Now, over half a century later, the ISI appears to be reviving its old ambition – this time through narcotics, radicalization, and subversion. The emerging nexus between Pakistan’s ISI, Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company, and Islamist operatives inside Bangladesh signals a new and dangerous phase of hybrid warfare in South Asia.
At the core of this covert campaign lies a group known as the Stranded Pakistanis – tens of thousands of Urdu-speaking Biharis who remained in Bangladesh after 1971. For decades, they lived in marginalized conditions, many confined to refugee-like camps in cities such as Dhaka, Chattogram, and Khulna. The ISI has long identified this community as fertile ground for recruitment, given their lingering sense of alienation and connection to Pakistan.
Intelligence sources now indicate that the ISI is working to consolidate these individuals into a semi-organized unit called the “Mohajir Regiment”. This formation, operating under the guise of cultural and welfare groups, reportedly includes both local recruits and agents trained by Pakistan’s intelligence handlers in Karachi and Rawalpindi.
Their mission: to act as the ISI’s local arm for espionage, sabotage, and influence operations inside Bangladesh – especially targeting security installations, ports, and strategic coastal areas.
Dawood Ibrahim: The financial conduit
No ISI operation abroad functions without a robust financial backbone – and this is where Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company enters the picture. Based between Karachi and Dubai, Dawood’s network has evolved from a mafia syndicate into a global narco-terror conglomerate. With deep links to the ISI, D-Company handles logistics, money laundering, and narcotics shipments that cross South and Southeast Asia.
Recent intelligence intercepts suggest that D-Company is now using Bangladesh as a transit corridor for narcotics sourced from the Golden Triangle and trafficked toward India, Sri Lanka, and the Middle East. The revenue from this trade, often funneled through informal banking systems and front businesses in Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar – is reportedly diverted to fund radical outfits and ISI-backed subversive projects.
Drugs, terror, and radicalization
Bangladesh’s growing narcotics problem offers fertile ground for exploitation. The country’s southern coastline, particularly around Teknaf and Cox’s Bazar, has already become a major entry point for methamphetamine (Yaba) smuggled from Myanmar. The ISI’s strategy is to integrate this existing smuggling infrastructure into a broader narco-terror pipeline – combining crime, ideology, and insurgency.
The objective is multifold:
- Erode Bangladesh’s social stability through addiction and corruption.
- Generate off-the-books revenue to sustain covert operations.
- Radicalize vulnerable groups, including the Rohingya population and Islamist outfits such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and Jama’atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya.
These elements together serve a strategic purpose – keeping Bangladesh perpetually unstable and weakening its secular, pro-India orientation.
The Dawood–ISI symbiosis
The Dawood–ISI partnership dates back to the 1993 Mumbai bombings, a grim demonstration of how organized crime and state-sponsored terror can merge. Since then, Dawood’s network has served as a flexible arm of Pakistan’s covert operations, particularly in South Asia.
In the case of Bangladesh, Dawood’s operatives are believed to facilitate narcotics shipments via maritime routes while laundering proceeds through real-estate and import-export businesses. A series of suspicious investments in Dhaka’s Mirpur and Uttara neighborhoods and in Chattogram’s trading sector hint at these clandestine financial flows.
Multiple sources allege that D-Company’s agents, working with ISI-linked handlers, have infiltrated logistics firms and shipping agencies operating between Chattogram Port and Dubai. This not only provides cover for narcotics movement but also enables intelligence-gathering on Bangladesh’s trade and defense infrastructure.
Political subversion and Islamist leverage
The ISI’s game plan extends beyond smuggling. It is also investing in political destabilization by covertly supporting Islamist and pro-Pakistan factions. The ultimate goal appears to be the creation of a proxy political force capable of undermining Bangladesh’s secular governance and steering the country closer to Islamabad’s ideological orbit.
According to regional intelligence briefings, ISI operatives are cultivating ties with certain madrasa networks, NGOs, and social media propagandists to amplify anti-India and anti-government narratives. The “Mohajir Regiment”, under its community façade, plays a dual role: acting as both a recruitment base and a logistics hub for these influence operations.
Meanwhile, funds from narco-trafficking – channeled through Dawood’s front companies – help sustain these efforts discreetly, keeping them deniable and financially self-sufficient.
Bangladesh’s geostrategic vulnerability
Bangladesh’s strategic geography makes it especially attractive for Pakistan’s covert designs. Its long coastline, proximity to India’s vulnerable Northeast, and large informal economy create multiple entry points for infiltration and influence. The ISI’s activities through the Mohajir network and Dawood’s syndicate therefore represent not isolated criminal enterprises but a composite hybrid threat blending espionage, finance, narcotics, and ideology.
While Dhaka’s intelligence agencies have made progress in curbing Islamist extremism, they now face a more complex challenge: the fusion of transnational crime and state-backed terrorism. This evolution demands not just policing but strategic counterintelligence cooperation with partners like India, the United States, and regional forums such as BIMSTEC.
International implications
For India, the emergence of an ISI-Dawood nexus in Bangladesh represents a serious regional security concern. Any destabilization in Dhaka could spill over into India’s Northeast, already sensitive to cross-border smuggling and insurgent infiltration.
For Washington and other global partners, this development underscores the persistent danger posed by Pakistan’s deep-state apparatus – which continues to weaponize terrorism and narcotics even as Islamabad presents itself as a victim of extremism.
Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia, where D-Company maintains financial nodes, could face international pressure to crack down on money laundering channels linked to this network.
The Rohingya connection
Adding another layer of complexity is the Rohingya crisis. With over a million refugees in Cox’s Bazar, ISI handlers are reportedly attempting to recruit from displaced populations, offering cash and safe passage in exchange for participation in smuggling or subversive missions. Such exploitation of humanitarian tragedy for strategic ends reflects the ISI’s familiar playbook -weaponizing desperation to sustain proxy warfare.
Bangladesh today stands at a crossroads. Its success in countering Islamist militancy and maintaining economic growth could be undermined if the ISI’s narco-terror networks gain deeper roots. The emergence of the “Mohajir Regiment”, the infiltration of Dawood Ibrahim’s financial channels, and the manipulation of narcotics flows form part of a single, integrated strategy – one designed to corrode Bangladesh’s sovereignty from within.
To confront this threat, Dhaka must adopt a whole-of-state response – combining intelligence coordination, maritime surveillance, anti-money laundering enforcement, and community outreach to neutralize recruitment networks.
At the same time, India, the United States, and regional allies must recognize that Pakistan’s hybrid warfare has evolved beyond traditional militancy into the gray zone of narco-terrorism and social subversion.
Pakistan’s ISI, long accustomed to proxy wars, now wields narcotics and radical networks as instruments of power. By leveraging Dawood Ibrahim’s criminal empire and exploiting Bangladesh’s vulnerable strata, it seeks to turn the country into a strategic pressure point against India and a foothold for Islamist influence in the Bay of Bengal.
Bangladesh must not let history repeat itself. The time for vigilance is now.
(The writer is an award-winning journalist, writer, and Editor of the newspaper Blitz)
