OPINION | Islamists in Bangladesh have staged a silent coup; a civil war is no longer implausible

Muhammad Yunus's administration has kept more than half a dozen parties out of political dialogue.

No one knew of Osman Hadi until the ouster of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024. He served as spokesperson of Inquilab Moncho, one of the forty-odd outfits that emerged to cash in on the ‘July Protest’, whose appeal among the masses has since eroded sharply.

Jamaat’s role in Sheikh Hasina’s overthrow

Jamaat-e-Islami has claimed full credit for “orchestrating” the movement, a narrative reinforced by its student wing’s victories in university elections. The remaining July protest stakeholders — beginning with the National Citizen Party (NCP) — have since been reduced to the proverbial third wheel in Bangladeshi politics.

The NCP matters only because it enjoys the backing of Nobel Peace Prize winner and interim chief Dr Muhammad Yunus, with whom it shares power. Others survive mainly on screen presence- across both television and digital platforms.

Their actual political relevance might have been tested in a competitive election — something unlikely to happen any time soon.

Awami League’s absence has tilted political balance

The displacement of the Awami League has pushed Bangladesh’s political balance sharply to the right. The absence of Hasina’s iron-fisted control has uncapped Islamist ambition. Those forces are now attempting to seize power by any means necessary. Pakistani and Turkish influence, the repeated surfacing of ISIS and Al-Qaeda flags (Bangla Tribune, 11 April 2025), and the mass release of extremists (South Asia Terrorism Portal, Assessment 2025) all point in the same direction.

Reminiscent of March 1971

One clear outcome is that Bangladesh has been pushed back to March 1971 — the brink of civil war — though today’s situation is geopolitically far more complex. The U.S. and the UK are now direct stakeholders, alongside China and Russia.

Abuse of the country’s Liberation history and Bangabandhu Mujibur Rahman’s legacy became the norm. Jamaat is a known culprit, openly doing so in television debates. Yet, under the new arrangement, it is treated as the lesser evil.

Barring a few honourable exceptions — such as Samakal, which published Mujib’s photograph on its Victory Day front page — most newspapers prostrated themselves before the new order. Television channels shifted allegiance en masse.

Media control, Yunus style

Under Hasina, newspaper editors received calls from intelligence agencies seeking “clarifications”. A suicide note left by a senior journalist in August suggests that this role has now been assumed by Dr Yunus’s media managers. Facebook posts provide further evidence, with public trials of journalists and outlets for anything remotely critical of the regime or sympathetic to the Awami League.

That is not all. Two exiled bloggers — Pinaki Bhattacharya from Paris and Elius Hossain from the United States — along with several July outfits, routinely label dissenting commentators as “associates of fascism”. What follows is either mob violence against the media — justified by the Yunus administration as the work of “pressure groups” (Bangla Tribune, 26 June 2025) — or arrests under terror charges. Journalist Anis Alamgir is the latest casualty.

Mahmudur Rahman’s role

Hadi was a mascot of this “new arrangement”. He was known for fiery Islamist speeches against the Awami League, Mujibur Rahman and India on television. He was also close to Mahmudur Rahman — once an accomplished energy adviser to Khaleda Zia government, now editor of a propaganda outlet and a key pillar of Islamist mobilisation alongside the blogger duo.

Rahman spent his exile years in Turkey (BBC, 29 September 2024). By his own admission, Hadi received him at the airport upon his return to Dhaka. Europe-based anti-Hasina journalist Zulkarnaine Saer later alleged that Rahman harboured ambitions of heading a ‘revolutionary government’ replacing Yunus (Facebook, 19 December). Saer rose to prominence through his contributions to Al Jazeera’s All the Prime Ministers’ Men, which alleged a Hasina–military nexus.

Mysteries abound about Hadi’s killing

Hadi was shot on 12 December. On the same day, Saer claimed on Facebook that India had pushed in eighty sharpshooters — a narrative he has promoted for some time. Subsequent social media claims suggested that the killer, Faisal Karim Masud, had fled to India. Police had not confirmed this until 21 December.

Faisal was reportedly a student-wing activist of the Awami League. Yet photographic evidence suggests he was part of Hadi’s inner circle. In November 2024, when the Awami League was (and still is) already on the run, Faisal was caught red-handed attempting an armed robbery at a school.

In a country where political favourites are routinely acquitted and adversaries — including journalists, former chief justices, bureaucrats and professors — are denied bail, Faisal secured an easy release (Ittefaq, 13 December 2025). His lawyer was allegedly linked to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the prime claimant to power in the Awami League’s absence.

This brings us to the obvious question: who killed an otherwise inconsequential Hadi, and why? Pinaki claimed to have been in Istanbul when the incident occurred (Facebook, 20 December 2025). A day earlier, he hinted that the India-escape story was fabricated and that there was an establishment-sponsored attempt to pin Mahmudur Rahman.

Splits in the regime and India as the scaapegoat

The swirl of allegations and counter-allegations points to an internal power struggle within Yunus’s support base. To obscure that reality, a scapegoat was needed — and India was a convenient choice. This also served a second purpose: consolidating Islamist support. Secular cultural institutions such as Chhayanot and Udichi were attacked, and Mujib’s residence vandalised again to leave unmistakable Islamist imprints.

Perhaps the most baffling episode in this mayhem was the so-called “mob attack” on the offices of The Daily Star and Prothom Alo — publications known for their overarching support of the Yunus administration. Several Yunus cabinet members, including the home minister, had written columns in these papers during the Hasina era. “Please don’t resign: An appeal to Prof Yunus,” The Daily Star editorialised as recently as May.

Media under attack

Video footage and social media commentary suggest that law enforcement made little attempt to resist the attacks on 19 December. New Age editor and Editors’ Council head Nurul Kabir observed: “Either a part of the government or the government allowed it to happen.”

Kabir held Jamaat responsible for the violence and for conspiring to postpone the February 2026 election (Channel 24, 21 December 2025). That same afternoon, The Daily Star editor Mahfuz Anam expressed hope for a better future for journalism under BNP acting chief Tarique Rahman.

BNP’s surprising position

Tarique has lived in the United Kingdom since 2008, following US visa denial. He did not return to Dhaka even to see his ailing mother, former prime minister Khaleda Zia, who has been on life support for nearly a month. “I am not free to make my own decisions and am not under sole control,” Tarique wrote in a Facebook post earlier this month.

This raises uncomfortable questions. Who prevented Tarique’s return over the past fifteen months? Was Jamaat solely responsible, or was there more at play? Who allowed Islamists to dominate public discourse? Why did the administration align with Islamist forces in gagging the media? And why has Dr Yunus consistently denied the rise of Islamic extremism?

What will be the legacy of Yunus?

Over the past year, the Yunus administration has kept more than half a dozen parties out of political dialogue. The Awami League, with a loyal support base of at least 30 per cent of the electorate, remains banned and under sustained attack. In December, the government ordered a fresh crackdown on party activists. This has created the ground for a manufactured mandate, leaving ample space for Islamists to emerge as the principal opposition, if not the eventual winners.

The most troubling aspect is that the election is being tied to a referendum that could produce a super-parliament in the name of reforms. Even if the BNP assumes office in February, it will be bound to follow dotted lines leading the country towards deeper conflict. It may sound alarmist today, but Dr Yunus may well be presiding over Bangladesh’s transition to another civil war.

(Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.)