Re-armed and unmonitored?

Decade after five young men walked into the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s leafy diplomatic quarter and slaughtered 22 people, the specter of violent Islamist extremism has returned to haunt Bangladesh. The 2016 siege, which left nine Italians, seven Japanese, and an American dead alongside local citizens, marked a bloody zenith in the nation’s battle against religious fanaticism. 

In its aftermath, the Bangladeshi state responded with uncompromising force. Intelligence agencies infiltrated clandestine cells, security forces dismantled bomb-making dens, and counter-terrorism squads neutralised key operatives. For years, this scorched-earth strategy bought a hard-won, if uneasy, domestic tranquility. 

Yet recent events suggest that the quiet was merely a period of quiet incubation rather than a permanent cure.

Over the past month, a sequence of detonations and explosive recoveries has shattered the illusion of total victory. At least two bomb blasts have claimed a life, while security forces have discovered explosive devices in over half a dozen locations across the capital, including near high-density transit hubs like metro stations. 

Remarkably, these lethal devices surfaced alongside major public gatherings, such as the Hindu minority’s Rath Yatra festival. While government officials have publicly dismissed the timing as a mere series of coincidences, the pattern tells a far more calculated story. One unexploded device is an anomaly; a widespread trail of pressure-cooker munitions, pipe bombs, and improvised devices points directly to an orchestrated revival of capacity.

The primary suspect in this resurging menace is Neo-Jamatul Muzahidin Bangladesh (Neo-JMB), an ideological offshoot aligned with the rigid doctrines of the Afghan Taliban. Security analysts note that a precursor to the current wave occurred months earlier in a madrasa in Keraniganj, where a premature blast wounded several individuals. 

Subsequent arrests tied the site directly to Neo-JMB operatives. Yet, the group’s sudden operational recovery is not occurring in a vacuum. It is the direct consequence of the severe political volatility that engulfed the country in 2024.

When the political order shifted dramatically in 2024, the state’s security apparatus suffered a systemic breakdown. Mass protests and widespread civil unrest culminated in attacks on at least 17 prisons across the nation. In the chaos, more than 2,000 prisoners escaped, among them dozens of hardened militants who had spent years plotting retaliation. 

This physical jailbreak was compounded by a judicial institutional relaxation. Between late 2024 and mid-2025, nearly 400 individuals accused of high-level terrorism offences—spanning Neo-JMB, Ansar al-Islam, and the pan-Islamist Hizb ut-Tahrir—were released on bail.

This toxic combination of escaped convicts and bailed extremists has injected experienced leadership back into Bangladesh’s underground networks. Intelligence agencies, reeling from political restructuring, have struggled to maintain effective surveillance on these high-risk individuals. It remains painfully unclear where these men have scattered, who they are communicating with, or how rapidly they are re-establishing operational command chains. 

To add to the geopolitical complexity, international security monitors, including the United Nations, have issued explicit warnings that Al Qaeda is actively seeking to leverage this domestic instability to establish new operational cells on Bangladeshi soil.

Rebuilding a terrorist movement does not initially require a grand, theatrical strike like the Holey Artisan atrocity. It requires quiet logistics: securing safe houses, raising funds through untraceable channels, stockpiling precursor chemicals, and establishing decentralized cells. The low-tech explosives recently uncovered across Dhaka represent the classic footprint of a network conducting dry runs, testing security response times, and asserting its renewed presence.

Furthermore, the battlespace has evolved significantly since 2016. While physical training camps were successfully eradicated in previous years, the digital ecosystem has provided extremists with an infinitely expandable sanctuary. Neo-JMB and its ideological peers rely heavily on encrypted messaging platforms, closed online forums, and targeted social media campaigns to radicalise a new generation of youth. 

Ideology, unlike physical infrastructure, cannot be dismantled by police raids alone. A collapsed network can be swiftly reassembled online if the underlying grievance and religious dogma remain unaddressed.

Bangladesh stands at a precarious juncture. Dismissing the recovery of explosives as isolated events is a dangerous strategy of institutional denial. The lesson of the 2016 siege was that major strikes are preceded by months of low-level preparation, incremental testing, and steady recruitment. A full-blown militant campaign may not yet be inevitable, but the structural conditions for its rebirth are fully present. 

The state’s priority must shift from reactive bomb disposal to proactive, intelligence-driven disruption of online networks, financial flows, and safe havens. Whether Bangladesh can avert a return to the dark days of mid-2010s terror will depend entirely on its willingness to confront these early warning signs before the stockpiles currently being assembled are put to their ultimate, tragic use.

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Siam Sarower Jamil is a Bangladeshi journalist. He can be reached at siam33jamil@gmail.com