Terrorism in Bangladesh is primarily composed of Islamist militant activities aimed at subverting the secular constitutional system to establish Sharia rule. These activities are often linked with international jihadist networks such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Major groups include Jama'at-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), responsible for coordinated bombings in 63 locations in 2005 which killed dozens and injured hundreds; its reformed splinter group, Neo-JMB; and Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), which targets secular bloggers and minorities.
Notable incidents include the 2016 Holey Artisan Bakery attack in Dhaka, where ISIS-affiliated militants killed 29 hostages, including foreign nationals, in a siege lasting over 12 hours. Alongside this are the serial killings of intellectuals and attacks on the Shia and Ahmadiyya communities.
Strict counter-measures by the government, such as operations by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), asset seizures, and the execution of JMB leaders through legal processes, led to a reduction in major attacks, and by 2023, no transnational incidents had occurred. But the ousting of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024 accelerated institutional chaos, creating a policing vacuum and leading to the release of convicted militants. This has fueled a documented increase in extremist activities by groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir, and the risk of an Islamist resurgence has grown as counter-terrorism solidarity has weakened.
In the early twentieth century, Bengal (present-day Bangladesh and West Bengal) emerged as a center of revolutionary terrorism against British colonial rule, characterized by secret societies committing assassinations, bombings, and robberies to challenge imperial authority. Groups like the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar, active from around 1905, drew inspiration from Hindu nationalist ideology and physical culture movements to target British officials and infrastructure in an attempt to instigate a mass uprising; these activities peaked during the Swadeshi movement following the 1905 Partition of Bengal. Notable incidents included the 1908 Muzaffarpur bombing, which killed two British women. Although East Bengal saw marginal involvement through networks extending revolutionary propaganda and arms smuggling, terrorism was more pronounced in West Bengal districts such as Kolkata and Dhaka, as the region's Muslim-majority population mitigated the Hindu-centric appeals. British countermeasures, including internment under the 1919 Rowlatt Act and the Bengal Criminal Law Amendment, suppressed these groups by the 1930s, shifting the main focus towards mainstream nationalism led by the Congress.
After the 1947 partition, East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) witnessed sporadic violence against Hindus amid the chaos of migration and property disputes, but organized terrorism remained dormant. Islamist groups like Jamaat-e-Islami, founded in 1941, prioritized pan-Islamic unity within Pakistan and opposed Bangladesh's independence, but they did not participate in any documented terrorist operations during that period.
Under Operation Searchlight, which began on 25 March 1971, state-sponsored acts of terror by Pakistani forces to crush Bangladesh's demand for independence led to planned attacks on Dhaka's universities, newspapers, and Awami League offices, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Bengali civilians within days. Pakistani military strategy included paramilitary auxiliary forces, primarily recruited from the Bihari community and Jamaat-e-Islami collaborators, known as Razakars. These forces engaged in raiding villages, carrying out targeted killings of intellectuals, and committing sexual violence, leading to an estimated 200,000 to 3 million civilian deaths and up to 400,000 cases of rape during these nine months.
The actions of the Jamaat-e-Islami leadership, who collected intelligence and formed units like Al-Badr to kill Bengalis and Hindus, were subsequently tried as war crimes in Bangladesh's tribunals.
Following Bangladesh's independence in 1971, leftist insurgent groups, including the Purba Banglar Sarbahara Party (PBSP) established by Siraj Sikder in June 1971, initiated armed opposition against the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman government. In their view, this government was aligned with Indian and Soviet interests instead of a genuine proletarian revolution. These Maoist groups, which had broken away from previous communist movements, conducted guerrilla operations targeting state forces and alleged class enemies. Discontent over post-independence economic policies and political centralization fueled these activities.
This insurgency intensified from 1972-1975, involving groups like the Gonobahini (People's Army), the armed wing of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (Jasad), which had split from the radical leftist faction of the Awami League. They clashed with government forces amid rising tensions in late 1974. The killing of Siraj Sikder in January 1975 and subsequent military crackdowns under Ziaur Rahman caused these groups to fragment; although their militant capabilities diminished by the late 1970s, their remnants persisted with limited activities in rural areas.
From 1975 till 1977, Bangladeshi politician Abdul Kader Siddique organzed a low level insurgency against Bangladeshi military and security personnel from 1975 till 1977.After the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, Siddiqui and his followers attacked government troops. Elements loyal to Siddiqui operated from bases in Assam province in India and were actively supported by India's Border Security Force. From September till October 1975 armed clashes with security personnel at diffrent parts of the country left 72 insurgents dead. They also claimed to have occupied some 300 kilometres area along the border stretching from Rangpur to Sylhet with about 9500 insurgents. During these attacks, 104 rebels were killed and more than 500 were injured. The insurgency lasted more than two years. In 1976, the ndian Prime minister Morarji Desai and his Janata Party came to power and ended support for his insurgency by stating "no shelter shall be given to criminal elements across the border" and promised non-interference in Bangladeshi affairs. Siddique complained that Indian Prime minister Morarji Desai handed over 6000 of his fighters to the government of Ziaur Rahman.
Parallel to the leftist unrest, ethnic tensions in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) escalated into an insurgency in the mid-1970s. This stemmed from indigenous grievances over the loss of traditional autonomy, which was further exacerbated by the influx of Bengali settlers and development projects like the 1963 Kaptai Dam. The Kaptai Dam had displaced nearly 100,000 tribal people. The Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS), formed in 1972, established the Shanti Bahini as its armed wing and began guerrilla attacks on military outposts and settlers in 1977, amidst government assimilation policies under military rule.
The Shanti Bahini's tactics included ambushes, kidnappings, and bombings. According to government statistics, this resulted in an estimated 1,180 soldiers and civilians killed, 766 injured, and 582 abducted from 1980 onwards, while their fighter strength was around 2,500 in the early 1990s. The government deployed over 120,000 troops for counter-insurgency operations in the early 1980s, which included allegations of forcibly transferring nearly 400,000 Bengali settlers and human rights violations. This contributed to over 80,000 tribal refugees fleeing to India and a total estimated 30,000 deaths until the conflict's resolution in 1997.
One of Bangladesh's oldest Islamist militant groups, Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B), was formally established in April 1992 by a group of Mujahideen cadres returning from fighting in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War. The group's formation was accelerated by the arrival of nearly 3,000 Bangladeshi volunteers who had received military training from Arab instructors, including Osama bin Laden, and were indoctrinated in Salafi-jihadist ideology during the late 1980s and early 1990s. HuJI-B's declared objective was to overthrow the secular government through armed struggle and establish Sharia law. It developed operational relationships with groups such as Pakistan's Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami and the early networks of al-Qaeda. Its initial leadership included individuals like Shawkat Osman, who coordinated recruitment and training camps in Bangladesh's remote border areas.
By the mid-1990s, HuJI-B began assassinating secular intellectuals, and politicians considered 'apostates' and launched other small-scale operations, initiating madrasa-based recruitment linked to Deobandi institutions. Members of this group pledged allegiance to global jihadist fatwas. Notably, they signed bin Laden's 1998 declaration of war against the United States and its allies. Their funding came from donations, initially arriving via Pakistani intermediaries, and local extortion, which was used to purchase light arms smuggled from Afghanistan.
Towards the end of the decade, in April 1998, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) emerged in Palampur, Dhaka Division. It was led by Abdur Rahman, a former member of HuJI-B. JMB emphasized rapid militarization and targeted assassinations to accelerate the establishment of a caliphate. They broke away from the larger networks, prioritizing internal insurgency over immediate 'foreign conspiracies'. Its core cadre of initially 100-200 members focused on bomb-making skills acquired from Afghan-returnees, which set the stage for coordinated attacks in the early 2000s. Political instability under successive BNP and Awami League governments, porous borders, and unchecked madrasa radicalization enabled this transformation.
During the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989), Bangladeshi volunteers were drawn to fight with Mujahid forces, gaining exposure to combat training, explosives expertise, and Salafi-jihadi ideology in camps supported by Saudi, Pakistani, and other patrons. Returning fighters leveraged this experience in domestic militant activities. This culminated in the formation of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) in April 1992, led by a core group of these veterans to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh. HuJI-B's initial operations reflected tactics honed in Afghanistan, such as conducting ambushes in small units and bomb-making.
Global jihadism, through Al-Qaeda's international network, further amplified these influences. Consequently, HuJI-B established operational relationships, including safe havens, funding, and joint training, in the Afghan-Pakistani border regions. HuJI-B leaders, including Mufti Abdur Rauf, endorsed Osama bin Laden's February 1998 fatwa calling for attacks on American and allied interests. Although this aligned Bangladeshi militants with the 'far enemy' doctrine, they continued to prioritize local secular targets. This nexus enabled HuJI-B to train hundreds of members in Bangladesh and send fighters abroad.
The establishment of Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) in September 2014 further expanded this connection. They involved Bangladeshi members in regional plots, such as attempting vessel hijackings and the targeted killings of bloggers who promoted secularism.
During the military regimes of Ziaur Rahman (1975âÂÂ1981) and Hussain Muhammad Ershad (1982âÂÂ1990), large-scale organized Islamist terrorism had not manifested; thus, counter-terrorism efforts were primarily directed at leftist insurgents, criminal and separatist movements rather than emerging Islamist networks. To consolidate power following the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Ziaur Rahman adopted various Islamization policies to bolster political support, including removing secularism from the constitution in 1977, inserting Islamic phrases such as "Bismillah-ar-Rahman-ar-Rahim," and granting legitimacy to previously banned religion-based political parties that had collaborated with Pakistan during the 1971 Liberation War. These measures facilitated the return and integration of Bangladeshi Mujahideen who had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, leading to the formation of groups such as Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) in 1992. At that time, no specific bans or crackdown operations were conducted targeting these proto-Islamist elements.
Ershad continued this trend by declaring Islam the state religion through a constitutional amendment in 1988, thereby further embedding Islamist influence in governance and education. At that time, security forces prioritized suppressing threats from communist and regional autonomy movements, such as in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, over emerging jihadi ideology. In the absence of specific counter-terrorism legislation, responses relied on ordinary penal codes and military intelligence, and documented actions against Islamist precursors were minimal.
During the regimes of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), particularly Khaleda Zia's 1991âÂÂ1996 and 2001âÂÂ2006 terms, Islamist terrorism further escalated due to their alliance with Islamist parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami. These parties were partners in the coalition government and provided electoral support.
As BNP officials provided tacit protection to militants in exchange for political loyalty, Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), formed around 1998âÂÂ2000, expanded unchecked in the early 2000s, recruiting members through madrasas and carrying out low-level extortion and assassinations. This leniency led to the unchecked growth of networks responsible for grenade attacks on political targets, such as the 2004 attack on an Awami League rally; however, effective measures were taken only after the situation had deteriorated.
A strategic shift occurred following JMB's nationwide serial bombings on 17 August 2005, in which over 450 low-capacity explosive devices were detonated across 63 districts, leaving two dead and dozens injured. This compelled the BNP government to ban JMB and HuJI-B in October 2005 under existing emergency powers. Subsequent operations resulted in the arrest of leaders such as JMB chief Shaykh Abdur Rahman and Siddique ul-Islam (Bangla Bhai) in late 2005, with trials and executions carried out under the Caretaker administration of 2007âÂÂ2008. But critics note that these measures were reactive and influenced by international pressure, rather than being part of a proactive strategy.
Following its victory in the January 2009 elections, the Awami League government, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, enacted the Anti-Terrorism Act 2009 aimed at bolstering the legal framework against militant groups. This Act replaced prior ordinances and incorporated provisions for the seizure of assets related to terrorism financing, the admissibility of confessions as evidence, and various penalties, including capital punishment. The law was subsequently amended in 2012 and 2013 to dismantle networks such as Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI), by expanding the definition of terrorism, expediting trials through special tribunals, and mandating the death penalty for financing militant activities.
During the Awami League's tenure, security forces, such as the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), conducted extensive operations targeting JMB, Neo-JMB, and ISIS-affiliated organizations, resulting in thousands of arrests and the neutralization of numerous operational cells. Following the 2016 Holey Artisan Bakery attack in Dhaka, which left 29 dead and was claimed by ISIS, authorities launched 'Operation Thunderbolt'. This operation led to the arrest of over 3,000 suspects, including 37 confirmed militants, within mere days, and a further 8,500 individuals were detained in a subsequent combing operation in mid-June 2016. RAB and the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit dismantled bomb-making factories and financing channels. As part of these operations, which continued into the 2020s, JMB members were arrested from areas such as Rajshahi as late as April 2017.
Judicial proceedings included the execution of HuJI leader Mufti Abdul Kader Molla and his two associates on 12 April 2017, for the 2004 grenade attack on the British High Commissioner, and the sentencing of 14 JMB militants to death in March 2021 for the conspiracy to assassinate Sheikh Hasina in 2000. Although ISIS-inspired incidents increased between 2013 and 2016, intelligence-led operations and international cooperation weakened militant coordination, reducing the threat to a low level between 2017 and 2023.
Critics, including human rights organizations, have alleged that RAB committed extrajudicial killings, known as 'crossfire' deaths, during these operations. In December 2021, the United States imposed sanctions on this unit and seven of its former officials over allegations of human rights abuses related to counter-terrorism activities. But government data emphasizes that these measures specifically targeted identified militants.
2013
Public perception in Bangladesh suggests growing concern over youth radicalization since 2009, with observers linking it to both local and global influences. Ideology is often seen as a key factor, with groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda reportedly targeting educated youth. A "Pyramid Root Cause model" has been proposed to explain this trend.
Dhaka Range Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police Md Rezaul Karim Mallick stated that there has been no real militancy in Bangladesh over the past 18 years, describing previous concerns as a "drama." Speaking at an anti-terrorism rally in Shariatpur, his remarks have drawn criticism from observers who argue that such comments overlook documented incidents and undermine efforts by law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies. He was earlier removed from his post due to a similar widespread criticism.