How an ‘Islamist power grab’ is taking shape in Bangladesh

Indian and Bangladeshi intelligence agencies have come across a sinister move by the Jamaat-e-Islami-led coalition to topple the BNP government through a violent agitation in November. Their aim is to create a ‘revolutionary government’ based on the controversial July Charter that aims to establish a Shariat-driven Islamic state in Bangladesh.

The National Citizens Party (NCP), created by youth leaders close to Muhammad Yunus, will spearhead the agitation that will seek to install the Nobel Laureate as President by ousting the current incumbent, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

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The Islamist coalition leaders and a cabal of retired army officers involved in their strategic planning process are upset with the current ruling BNP government for refusing to implement the July Charter and usher in a new Islamist Constitution. They feel India upstaged their bid for state power by backing the BNP and ensuring they won with the support of Awami League voters. The plan has the backing of Pakistan, Turkey and some elements of the US Deep State.

The blueprint for a power grab

So the Islamic strategic planners, led by former Brigadier Abdullahil Aman Azmi, have worked out a two-phase plan for capturing state power. The first phase of Azmi’s plan is ‘Operation Domon’ (suppression), which aims to decimate the Awami League, which is threatening to stage a comeback centering around the return of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. In this design, the Azmi team has elicited the BNP government’s support to decimate the Awami League.

Top Bangladesh intelligence officials privy to Azmi’s secret deliberations with his team and then with Home Minister Salahuddin told this writer that the plan to decimate the Awami League, still the country’s leading mass party despite the ongoing ban on it, has been adopted in view of the announcement of her intended return to Bangladesh by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Hasina, in a series of interviews with Western and Indian media outlets, has challenged the BNP government to keep “the jail and the gallows ready for me”. She said she will return from India with her party leaders in December, the month of victory over Pakistan in the 1971 civil war that led to the creation of Bangladesh.

A top Bangladesh military intelligence official said a cabal of retired military officers close to the Jamaat-e-Islami have chalked out a series of repressive measures to counter the Awami League’s possible attempt to trigger a popular uprising centering around Hasina’s imminent return. He was unwilling to be named.

The man behind the strategy

The leader of his secret planning group, Brigadier Azmi, recently called for ‘total unity’ between BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami and other Islamist parties to ‘counter the fascist threat’, meaning the Awami League.

While Azmi, son of 1971 wartime Emir of Jamaat-e-Islami Gholam Azam, worked out this elaborate plan, which was then okayed by the BNP government, Jamaat-e-Islami and other Islamist parties, and then by army chief Gen Waqar-u-Zaman himself. The plan involves using Islamist radicals to unleash targeted assassinations of 15 to 20 active Awami League leaders in each of Bangladesh’s 64 districts. The leaders are considered capable of mass mobilisation.

Simultaneously, the police are being tasked to frame and arrest less prominent Awami League members or those close to them. The targeted killings by Islamist radicals and arrests by police are aimed at weakening Awami plans for mass mobilisation using considerable public anger over skyrocketing prices, nosediving power and fuel supplies, and massive extortions by BNP activists.

The third element of ‘Operation Domon’ is targeted killings and extortion against Hindus as a way of pressurising India’s BJP government to force it to stop backing Hasina and the Awami League.

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The fourth element of this operation is to expedite verdicts in the International Crimes Tribunal against Awami League leaders and execute those of them awarded the death penalty and who have been in jail since August 2024, when Hasina’s government was toppled in a regime change operation unleashed by the US Deep State. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who was propped up by the army and the US Deep State, admitted in a lecture at the Clinton Foundation, after taking over as chief adviser, that the ouster of Hasina was the result of ‘a meticulously designed operation’ rather than a spontaneous public agitation.

Arming the Islamist militia

While Azmi and his cohorts devised ‘Operation Domon’, another top figure of this cabal, former DGFI chief Rezzakul Haider Chowdhury, was on a long visit to Turkey to procure weapons for the proposed Islamist militia that is now being raised under cover of an Armed Reserve. 8,800 radicalised Muslim youths have already been handpicked and are now undergoing month-long combat training, which contains a long module on law and order operations. Clearly, the armed reserve is not for deployment against foreign invaders but actually meant to tackle ‘internal enemies’.

A top Bangladesh military intelligence official of DGFI told this writer that the strategic planning process to finalise ‘Operation Domon’ was initiated in July by Brigadier Azmi and his cohorts, who operate out of a Defence Officers Housing Society in Dhaka’s Banani. Pakistani and Turkish intelligence officials operating under consular cover in diplomatic missions are regular visitors to Azmi’s office.

Army chief Gen Waqar-u-Zaman is very welcoming of Azmi’s proposals. Following his recent Hajj at Holy Mecca, Waqar has started keeping a beard in Islamic style and introduced Islamic Studies in the training curriculum of the defence services.

Pakistan’s envoy in Dhaka, Imran Haider, has been regularly visiting Islamic orphanages (etimkhanas) in recent months, identifying ‘bright students’ for higher education in Pakistan. A top official of Bangladesh National Security & Intelligence (NSI) told this writer that his agency has flagged this as an attempt to raise squads of suicide bombers for use in Bangladesh and neighbouring Indian states.

The Jamaat-e-Islami recently organised a long march from Dhaka to Chittagong, but the convoy of vehicles actually picked up a huge consignment of Turkish weapons routed to the port city in a Pakistani vessel in containers marked ‘Cricket Equipment’. Police officials in Chittagong said at least 10,000 assault rifles and assorted ammunition were carried away by Jamaat-e-Islami cadres, now that there is no provision for mandatory inspection of goods from Pakistan.

‘Ops Dokhol’ after ‘Domon’

The Bangladesh intelligence officials say ‘Operation Domon’ has started unfolding in September. Seven top Awami League leaders, including party general secretary Obaidul Quader, were sentenced to death. Seventeen Awami League leaders were attacked and killed across the country. 2,500 arrests of Awami Leaguers were reported from across the country. The BNP government obviously played down the repression campaign in view of PM Tarique Rahman’s UN visit, but the intensity of repression is set to dramatically increase in the run-up to Sheikh Hasina’s return.

The Azmi cabal wants ‘Operation Domon’ to achieve the decimation of the Awamis by the end of October, which is when they switch gears to initiate Operation ‘Dokhol’ (capture). With the Awamis on the run, the Islamists with their armed militia will start an agitation to topple the BNP government, playing on public anger over severe governance failures. That ensures the Awami plan to use these failures to stage a comeback centred on Hasina’s return is a month too late.

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The Islamist plan is to decimate the Awamis through state-sponsored oppression by October and then initiate the power grab through a July-August 2024-style street upsurge against the BNP government. They expect large-scale defection from BNP through grassroots co-option during the anti-Awami drive.

For India, the challenge is to first persuade the BNP government, so far involved in one-upmanship with India, to recognise the threat to its elected government by making it aware of the insidious Jamaat plan. Then comes the crucial challenge to thwart it by bringing about a reconciliation between BNP and Awami League.

National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s recent secret visit to Dhaka has much to do with handling this challenge and getting the BNP government on the same page with it. Failure to stop this Islamist power grab will mean India in future will have to deal with a 'Bengali Pakistan' in the East, which will be part of the US-backed Mecca Alliance.