Reports suggest these camps have become recruiting grounds for jihadist outfits targeting India's northeast and Myanmar's Rakhine state, adding a dangerous cross-border dimension.

The ongoing purge is accompanied by a disinformation campaign designed to discredit Bangladesh's armed forces and intelligence services. For decades, institutions like the DGFI were instrumental in countering militancy, dismantling the networks of HuJI-B, JMB and ISIS affiliates. Now, those same state institutions are under legal and reputational siege.

Incredibly, army chief General Waker Uz Zaman and his senior brass have remained uncharacteristically silent in public, fueling fear that their inaction is part of the script.

Meanwhile, whispers in political and military circles assert that the Yunus administration plans to declare itself a“revolutionary government”, scrap the existing constitution and arrogate unto itself sweeping powers to dismiss the president and military heads – just as in Iran.

Under this plan, lawsuits against dozens or even hundreds of military personnel will be accelerated, with many facing the death penalty.

Meanwhile, security has been suddenly tightened around the US Embassy in Dhaka amid intelligence warnings of a possible jihadist attack. If Islamist forces can manipulate or dismantle Bangladesh's military – turning it into a politicized or sectarian instrument – they will not only dominate domestic politics but export violence beyond Bangladesh's borders.

Washington's posture thus far has been dangerously complacent. While the US once partnered with Pakistan's ISI in Afghanistan, that alliance birthed uncontrollable militant networks that later targeted American interests itself.

The current drift in US policy – in ignoring Islamist advances in Bangladesh – risks repeating this error. Indeed, Erdogan's Turkey is allegedly offering financial and logistical backing to Islamist organizations in Bangladesh, further exacerbating the security threat.

Bangladesh's institutions are being hollowed out from within. The Yunus regime is launching legal, media and administrative campaigns to defame and delegitimize the army and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), while prosecuting current and past security chiefs.

Many of these officers are being charged under exaggerated or fabricated allegations of human rights crimes, depriving the country of critical institutional memory and operational effectiveness.

Bangladesh's internal transformation could reshape South Asia's security geometry. A theocratic Bangladesh, ideologically aligned with Turkey and Pakistan, would undermine India's eastern security flank and embolden Islamist movements across the Bay of Bengal arc.

For China, such instability offers both risks and opportunities: a weakened Bangladesh could become more dependent on Beijing's economic leverage, while regional disorder could delay Indian-led connectivity initiatives.

For ASEAN states, particularly Myanmar and Thailand, the spillover of radical networks from Rohingya camps poses acute threats.

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Despite escalating risks, Western powers have remained conspicuously silent. Washington's strategic bandwidth appears consumed elsewhere, echoing the complacency of the 1980s when US reliance on Pakistan's ISI during the Afghan jihad inadvertently created global terror networks.

Today, the Yunus regime benefits from the same kind of diplomatic indulgence – its Islamist pivot obscured by the aura of a Nobel laureate. But history warns that ideological radicalization masquerading as reform can destroy nations from within.

Bangladesh stands on the edge of an ideological abyss. The erosion of its armed forces is not merely a domestic purge; it is the prelude to a regional realignment that could empower Islamist forces stretching from Istanbul to Jakarta.

The international community – particularly India, the US and ASEAN partners – must recognize this pattern early. The lesson of past complacency in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran is clear: silence in the face of ideological militarization breeds catastrophe.

Unless Bangladesh's democratic and security institutions are defended, the world may soon face a new Islamist axis anchored in Dhaka and bent on destabilizing the entire Indo-Pacific theater.

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is an award-winning journalist, writer and editor of the newspaper Blitz. He specializes in counterterrorism and regional geopolitics. Follow him on X: @Salah_Shoaib

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