By Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
The rise of Islamist extremist groups in Bangladesh has taken a dangerous turn following the jihadist coup of August 5, 2024. Under the patronage of Muhammad Yunus and his Islamist allies, banned militant organizations such as Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) and Hamas are expanding their networks, posing a significant threat to regional and global security. While the international community remains largely unaware of the growing crisis, recent developments indicate that Bangladesh is becoming a breeding ground for terrorism, with radical elements infiltrating key sectors of governance, judiciary, and law enforcement.
Following the jihadist coup of August 5, 2024 – blueprinted and executed jointly by Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George and Alex Soros, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the Deep State, which ousted the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina – notorious terrorist outfits such as Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) and Hamas have been steadily expanding their networks and activities in Bangladesh. This has been occurring under the direct patronage of Muhammad Yunus and his Islamist-jihadist allies, posing a serious security threat to the region and the world.
Although international media outlets reported that “hundreds of activists of the banned militant group Hizb ut-Tahrir, chanting ‘Khilafat, Khilafat’, gathered for the ‘March for Khilafat’ procession at the Baitul Mukarram Mosque after Friday prayers, defying police barricades”, the reality is far more concerning. This program was silently supported by influential figures within the Yunus regime.
Notably, Dilly Hussain, a leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s UK chapter, visited Bangladesh and held a series of meetings with key figures, including leaders of the ‘National Citizens’ Party (NCP)’, a party formed by Yunus loyalists; Shafiqul Alam, Yunus’s press secretary; the Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami; and Professor Shahiduzzaman, an anti-Hindu and anti-India academic from Dhaka University.
According to OpIndia, on October 30, 2023, Dilly Hussain, the Deputy Editor of the Islamist propaganda website ‘5 Pillars’, called for the targeted harassment and persecution of Israelis in Muslim-majority countries.
Dilly Hussain, a British-born Islamist of Bangladeshi origin, serves as the Deputy Editor of ‘5 Pillars’. In a tweet, he declared, “This is the kind of welcome all Israelis should be receiving at the airports of Muslim-majority countries”.
His tweet followed a violent incident at Dagestan Airport in Russia, where an Islamist mob stormed the premises, chanted anti-Semitic slogans, and prevented Israeli passengers from deboarding.
Beyond his explicit anti-Semitism, Hussain has a history of propagating anti-India and anti-Hindu rhetoric. On India’s Independence Day, August 15, 2023, he tweeted his hope that the Hindu-majority nation would “soon fall prey to Islamic rule”.
“On Indian Independence Day, I pray that Allah (swt): Liberates Indian-occupied Kashmir; Eases the suffering of Muslims and other oppressed minorities; For India to return to Islamic rule. Ameen”.
Following the jihadist coup in August 2024, Yunus’s associates facilitated the visit of Mohammed Delwar Hossain (Dilly Hussain), a key figure from Hizb ut-Tahrir’s UK branch, to Bangladesh in October 2024.
A high-ranking counterterrorism official in Dhaka, speaking anonymously, stated that the March 7 police crackdown on Hizb ut-Tahrir after Friday prayers was nothing more than a staged spectacle. He explained that radical Islamist factions within Yunus’s illegitimate government are desperate to convince the Western world that they have no links to Hizb ut-Tahrir. To achieve this, they orchestrated this political drama- a calculated deception designed to make foreign nations, particularly those in the West, believe that the illegal Yunus regime is taking action against extremist groups.
The expert further asserted that the March 7 incident was carefully designed by key policymakers of the Yunus regime as a means of remaining in power by staging a mock crackdown on Islamists and jihadists. The ultimate goal was to garner sympathy and support from Western nations, particularly the Trump administration.
In recent months, Bangladesh has come under the scrutiny of the U.S. intelligence establishment. Since August 2024, under the direct patronage of Muhammad Yunus and his Islamist-jihadist allies, several terrorist organizations – including Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Hamas, Hefazat-e-Islam (HeI), and Ansar al-Islam – have been openly operating within the country. These groups have intensified their persecution of Hindus, Christians, and other religious minorities.
Additionally, taking advantage of the political instability, the Pakistani Army and its notorious spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), have been providing financial and logistical support to various insurgent groups in India, including the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). ISI has been actively assisting these groups in reestablishing training camps along the Bangladesh-India border. Furthermore, Pakistani intelligence is generating millions of dollars through drug and arms trafficking in Bangladesh.
The Yunus regime has even lifted mandatory post-landing inspections for cargo arriving from Karachi via Pakistani-flagged vessels, allowing illicit goods to enter the country unchecked. Transnational drug trafficking syndicates, including Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company and cartels from Mexico and Colombia, have expanded operations in Bangladesh, forming direct alliances with ISI. As a result, narcotics are being smuggled to various destinations, including India, the Middle East, and Western nations such as the United States.
Following the jihadist coup of August 5, 2024, Muhammad Yunus, a well-known Trump critic and financial associate of Hillary Clinton and George Soros, has systematically placed Islamist radicals and suspected terrorists in key government, judiciary, and civil-military positions. For decades, Yunus has been a top donor to the Clinton Foundation, benefiting from hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from USAID and other U.S. agencies, secured through Hillary Clinton’s influence. Credible sources also suggest that Hillary Clinton maintains business ties with Yunus’s ‘Grameen America’ and various other profit-driven ventures in the United States, France, and beyond.
The ongoing patronization of Islamist and terrorist entities in Bangladesh under the Yunus regime not only threatens regional stability but also has far-reaching implications for global security.
The alarming rise of Hizb ut-Tahrir, Hamas, and other jihadist entities in Bangladesh under the patronage of Muhammad Yunus is not just a national crisis – it is a global security threat. The systematic infiltration of radical elements into governance, law enforcement, and strategic sectors of the country signals a calculated move to reshape Bangladesh into a hub for Islamist extremism. Meanwhile, foreign intelligence agencies, including those of the United States, are beginning to take note of the growing nexus between Yunus, Pakistani intelligence, and transnational terrorist networks.
If this trajectory remains unchecked, Bangladesh could soon become a breeding ground for jihadist activities, destabilizing South Asia and extending its influence far beyond the region. The international community must act swiftly by imposing targeted sanctions, cutting off financial support to entities linked to Yunus, and pressuring the regime to dismantle its ties with terrorist organizations. Failure to intervene now may result in irreversible consequences, making Bangladesh the next epicenter of global jihadist operations.
(The writer is an internationally acclaimed multi-award-winning journalist, writer, research-scholar, and Editor of Blitz)
