Al-Qaeda recruiter Asif Adnan is the son of a retired High Court judge. He was arrested in 2014. Later, AF Hasan Ariff, Yunus’ adviser, stood for him and managed his bail.

Now Asif Adnan has become a spiritual leader of the Caliphate and is preaching against secularism and democracy, and calling for jihad in India, Myanmar, and Palestine.

Yunus’ Nagorik Party leader, Hasnat Abdullah, is a close associate of Asif Adnan, as seen in a video in the Notre Dame College area recently. Asif Adnan, Abu Twaha Adnan, and Shamsul Arefin Shakti are students or followers of Taliban supporter and HuJI-B leader Mufti Harun Izhar and AQIS spiritual leader Jasimuddin Rahmani.

After the August 5 changeover, Harun Izhar on several occasions said the Islamic groups and parties should work together with Jamaat-e-Islami to materialize their plan to establish a Shariah state in the future.

Another al-Qaeda leader, Syed Ziaul Haque, also linked to Hizb ut-Tahrir and ISIS, is being patronized by Zulkarnain Saer Sami and Amar Desh. Zia’s father-in-law is the head of the Commission on Enforced Disappearance.

Harun and Rahmani were invited to Elias Hossain’s YouTube shows several times. Rahmani also demanded that Pinaki and Elias be made advisers. The whole gang is coordinated by Amar Desh editor Mahmudur Rahman.

This nexus has been working at least since 2006 under the RCUD NGO, formed by Islami Bank founder Abdur Razzaq Laskar and run by Prof Rezaur Razzaq, after the arrest of top JMB leaders. Some of the organizers went to Yemen in 2009 to meet with al-Qaeda’s Anwar al-Awlaki.