Is Islamic Extremism Taking Over Bangladesh?

The Diplomat

Bangladesh experienced the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5, 2024, dismantling a fifteen-year security apparatus that strictly suppressed religious extremist factions. This political collapse raised immediate regional alarm, particularly in India, over potential cross-border terrorism and safe havens for radical Islamist outfits on its eastern border.

During her tenure, Hasina utilized aggressive state security mechanisms to systematically neutralize organizations like Jamaat-e-Islami, enforcing political dominance under the premise of regional counterterrorism. By August 2026, two years after her removal, Jamaat-e-Islami has completed a dramatic return to parliamentary politics while radical groups mobilize and violent attacks against religious minorities escalate across the country. Although these developments reflect a rapid resurgence of Islamist political influence and heightened regional security risks, the emerging domestic landscape underscores complex ideological reconfigurations within the post-Hasina order rather than an unchecked, absolute takeover by extremist factions.

Comment

The political rehabilitation of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami directly complicates cross-border intelligence collection mechanisms established between New Delhi and Dhaka during the 2009 Security Pact. A reduction in bilateral counterterrorism sharing forces the Research and Analysis Wing to rely more heavily on unilateral human intelligence networks across the 4,096-kilometre international border. This operational shift increases monitoring requirements for the Border Security Force regarding sanctuary networks previously suppressed by Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Forces Intelligence. Consequently, border surveillance units face higher tracking friction against illicit transit corridors running through the Siliguri Corridor and Tripura sectors.

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