Islamization of Bangladesh took place several times—from 1975-96, 2001-06, 2007-08, and 2024-25—every time at the hands of the military or army-backed governments—extensively—with the media and civil society leaders going with the tide.

The previous Awami League, the lone secularist force, also allowed a soft Islamization, apparently under pressure from the military intelligence and the Jamaat-backed jihadists, who carried out massive killings from 2013 to 2019 in association with Pakistan- and Syria-affiliated extremists of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

The Awami League’s suicidal steps included flawed legal procedures against the arrested extremists and Jamaati war criminals, patronization of Hefazat-e-Islam, which is linked to al-Qaeda, revision of textbooks, and lack of monitoring of mosques and Qawmi madrasas, and social media.

The Awami League leadership described its pro-Islamist stance as social inclusion of the underprivileged madrasa groups in line with the Constitution, which upholds contradictory provisions like state religion and secularism at the same time.

After the 2018 elections, all the militant groups became united and pledged to wage armed jihad in Bangladesh, India’s Seven Sisters, and Myanmar’s Rakhine State through the Shaheed Hamza Brigade and Jama’atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya.

List of old JMB attacks

List of AQIS attacks

In early 2013, as the trial of senior leaders of Jamaat for crimes against humanity in 1971 was nearing its end, Jamaat decided to oust Sheikh Hasina through jihad. When the Ganajagaran Mancha was established in Shahbagh on February 5 to demand the maximum punishment for the razakars and a ban on religion-based politics, the leaders and activists of Jamaat-Hefazat and their like-minded parties started a series of murders by calling the protesters and the Awami League enemies of Islam and fascists. The Jamaat-owned newspapers the Daily Amar Desh, the Daily Naya Diganta and the Daily Amar Desh supported the terror. They also managed to get statements from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey governments to save the Jamaat war criminals.

The militants tried to suppress the movement by attacking secular blogger Asif Mohiuddin with a machete on January 13 and hacking former BUET student Ahmed Rajib Haider or Thaba Baba to death in a machete attack on February 15. In the next three years, the Pakistan-based militant group Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) killed nine people in 11 more operations and claimed responsibility. Their Bangladesh branch is called Ansar al-Islam. At least seven more people of the same ideology were killed in the same way during this period, but no group claimed responsibility. In each incident, the militants accused the victims of insulting the Prophet and Islam and engaging in various un-Islamic activities.

It is worth noting that after the assassination of prominent secular writer, researcher and teacher Avijit Roy on February 26, 2015, Ansar Al-Islam took responsibility for all the killings after the attack on Asif Mohiuddin. Before that, a new organization called Ansarullah Bangla Team had claimed responsibility for them on Twitter.

After Ansar Al-Islam claimed responsibility, the name of Ansarullah Bangla Team was no longer heard. At that time, the intelligence police denied the existence of the foreign militant group Ansar Al-Islam and arrested many secular bloggers and writers based on the list provided by the militants. Again, the government was silent when the killings were being carried out based on this list. As a result, most of the cases were not properly investigated or tried. In some of the murders, the killers caught red-handed were identified as students of private universities and madrasas who were affiliated with HuT, Islami Chhatra Shibir and Hefazat.

Similarly, the intelligence agencies denied the existence of the militant group that carried out the killings in the name of the Islamic State in 2015.

Ansar al-Islam focused on building online support after the killing of LGBT rights activists Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Tanoy in their latest operation. They also joined the Cox’s Bazar-based jihadi activities to protect the rights of the Rohingya, which their predecessors, HuJI-B and JMB, had been doing for long.

Jihadi books, online forums and research show that militants from HuT, Ansar al-Islam, HuJI-B and JMB actively participated in the anarchist movement of July-August 2024 to overthrow the Awami League government and eliminate secularism from the country. However, no militant group other than Jamaat-Shibir and HuT has yet publicly acknowledged their involvement.

The interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Prof Muhammad Yunus released Jasimuddin Rahmani, the spiritual leader of Ansar al-Islam, and dozens of jihadists after coming to power. Many other extremists also managed to flee the prisons as their groups launched fatal attacks in July-August. Since then, Rahmani and other jihadist leaders have been speaking at Islamic conferences to instigate armed struggle in Arakan of Myanmar, north-east states and Kashmir of India while showing sympathy for the Jamaat leaders executed for war crimes and those arrested for promoting extremism, raising eyebrows of the peace-loving citizens as well as the international community.

After the Awami League government came to power in 2009, it banned Hizb ut-Tahrir because they were inciting the army to change the balance of power. In addition, they are working as coordinators to provide communication, planning and technical assistance to other domestic and foreign militant groups.

Mufti Hannan’s HuJI-B, AQIS, which was behind the series of murders of secularists and anti-Jamaat activists, and the Islamic State, responsible for the 2016 attack on the Holey Artisan restaurant in Gulshan, consider JMB founder Shaykh Abdur Rahman to be the founder of jihad in Bangladesh.

A message sent to various media outlets by the JMB in 2016 gives an idea of ​​the organization’s targets, types of operations and capabilities. The statement was first published on a Facebook page on June 27 and later found in a jihadi discussion platform named “Dawahilallah”.

The JMB said, from 2000 to 2016, they took part in about 1,100 jihadi operations across the country. Some of these were suicide attacks. At least 71 people were killed, and thousands were injured in these attacks. Their targets were Shia and Ahmadiyya followers and their mosques, Hindu priests, Christians, police, courts, NGO offices, cinema halls, Jatra events, and Sufi shrines. However, law enforcement agencies claim that at least 64 people were killed in JMB operations between 2000 and 2005.

The Islamic State (ISIS), which began operations in 2015, had similar targets. This group was formed by former members of JMB, HuJI-B, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Ahle Hadith and al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).

It is worth noting that after the hanging of Shaykh Abdur Rahman and the arrest of Mufti Hannan, the JMB split into two groups—one joining the AQIS and the other joining ISIS. Members of HuJI-B merged with them.

Many of the trained members of the ISIS went to fight in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq after receiving jihadi training.

The followers of ISIS claimed responsibility for 29 attacks, including the Holey Artisan Bakery massacre, in two years. At least 55 people, including foreigners and priests of the ISKCON temple, were killed in these attacks. In addition, at least 15 other similar murders and attacks with bombs and sharp weapons were carried out during that time, including the Sholakia Eidgah ground, shrines, and several ISKCON temples and followers.