Washington Examiner
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The smoke had hardly cleared from the Pentagon and ruins of the World Trade Center after the September 11, 2001 attacks before Democrats and Republicans began finger pointing: Was George W. Bush to blame for missing the warning signs about Al Qaeda’s plot? Wasn’t Bill Clinton to blame for allowing the safe haven to develop in the first place? The truth is both dropped the ball.
Clinton was more poll-driven than his predecessors. Afghanistan was not a winning issue for him, and so, rather than lead, he preferred to keep the issue out of sight, out of mind. Islamist groups declared their hatred for America, but journalists and policymakers shrugged at what many saw as just a confusing jumble of acronyms with Arabic and Pushtun names thousands of miles away from America. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, meanwhile, deferred to the State Department’s worst instincts to engage the Taliban. Credulous diplomats believed they had convinced the Taliban to quarantine Osama Bin Laden and shutter his terror training camps.
History now repeats 1,500 miles away in Bangladesh. In August 2024, protestors forced the resignation of longtime Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Bangladesh’s founding leader and one of the first female leaders of a Muslim country. Sheikh Hasina had grown increasingly autocratic with time and students especially were happy to see her go.
It did not take long for most Bangladeshis to understand that the devil they knew was far better than what came next. Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work allowing the poor to access credit, and perhaps the most famous Bangladeshi on the world stage, supported the protestors. Upon their victory, they repaid the favor and appointed the 84-year-old Yunus “chief administrator,” basically an interim president. Perhaps Yunus allowed his political grievances to blind him or perhaps ego got the better of him, but today he provides cover for what increasingly is an Islamist and terror-embracing government.
Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamist party whose Pakistani offshoot is one of that country’s most radical parties, is quickly consolidating control over Bangladesh. In the first weeks following the ouster of Sheikh Hasina and her secular Awami League, Jamaat-e-Islami staged pogroms against religious minorities and prominent liberals. It openly seeks to convert Hindus and Christians under threat of death. Today, with Bangladesh outside the headlines, at least in the West, it is transforming the country of 175 million people into a safe haven for a number of terrorist groups, many of which make Al Qaeda look positively liberal.
Just as their counterparts a quarter century ago, American journalists and national security officials have difficulty sorting through rapidly proliferating Islamist groups. There is Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami-Bangladesh, for example, that strengthens its links to Pakistan-sponsored terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai Attacks. Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh uses its new safe-haven to plot attacks against India. An offshoot, Neo-Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, recruits fighters to supplement the Islamic State in Syria, and targets not only religious minorities but also foreigners inside Bangladesh.
The new Bangladeshi regime has also sprung Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Khelafat-e-Majlis terrorists from prison.
Bangladesh today is like Afghanistan in 2000. Khelafat-e-Majlis, Allah’r Dal, and Ahle Hadith Andolon Bangladesh now coalesce under Heefazat-e-Islam to establish Islamic law throughout Bangladesh under the banner, “Bangladesh will become Afghanistan, and we will become Taliban.”
Bin Laden could rain terror upon New York and Washington because both Clinton and Bush dropped the ball. Joe Biden and Donald Trump now revise those roles by ignoring Bangladesh’s rapid descent into a terrorist hell. The chief difference is that a terror base in Bangladesh could be more dangerous for two reasons. First, Bangladesh is one of the world’s densest countries. Targeting terrorists in caves and mountains is tough; routing them out from urban slums is exponentially more difficult. Second, while Afghanistan was landlocked, Bangladesh borders the world’s most populous country and has an outlet to the sea.
It is time to designate and shut down the Islamic State’s new emirate before it further
