Fazle Elahi Akbar (born 6 November 1952) is a former major general of Bangladesh Army who served as military adviser to the UN Advance Mission in the Sudan (UNAMIS). He served as the Force Commander in UNMIS from 2004 to 2006.
Akbar was commissioned into the infantry (East Bengal Regiment) in 1971. He was part of Bangladesh's very first UN Peacekeeping mission. In 1988, the army selected 15 top officers to serve as observers during the Iran-Iraq War as part of the United Nations IranâÂÂIraq Military Observer Group (UNIIMOG) from 1988 to 1989. He was a lieutenant colonel then. From 2004 to 2006, he served as the Force Commander of the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), became the first ever force commander from Bangladesh. He also served as director of military operations.
Akbar is a director of Social Islami Bank Limited. He retired from the Bangladesh Army in 2006 following a lobbying effort against him by General Moeen U Ahmed. On 21 October 2008, he joined as the Security Affairs Adviser to Begum Khaleda Zia, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, a position he still holds till to date.
He is the chairman of âÂÂFoundation for Strategic and Development StudiesâÂÂ, or FSDS, a think tank which carries out research on the state's good governance, national security, development, and policy making.