Why does the Taliban remain a point of influence in Bangladesh?
By Saqlain Rizve, The Interpreter
Afghanistan’s extreme form of Islam has seeped into subtle spaces – and risks Dhaka’s reputation as a global player.
When the Taliban recaptured Kabul in August 2021, their victory was celebrated far beyond Afghanistan’s borders. In Bangladesh, many young men in madrasas and university dormitories shared images of Taliban fighters online, declaring them true Muslims who had defeated a superpower that they saw as dangerous for Islam. Tea stalls in metropolitan and rural towns filled with talk of how they endured decades of occupation yet emerged victorious. That same year, a senior official with the Bangladesh Police stated that some individuals from Bangladesh were attempting to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban.
The story resonated in a country where 91% of the population is Muslim but the community is not monolithic.
Many of the roots of Taliban sympathy in Bangladesh can be traced back to the late 1980s, when a handful of young Bangladeshi men travelled to Afghanistan to join the mujahideen in their war against the Soviet Union. Drawn by calls of Islamic solidarity, they saw it as a holy struggle to defend fellow Muslims from foreign occupation. Some never returned, but those who did carried back not only stories of resistance but also the networks, ideology, and training that later fed Islamist activism in Bangladesh.
The Afghan returnee legacy still influences how a segment of Bangladeshi youth view the Taliban today, not just as distant rulers of Kabul, but as an inspirational model of faith-driven defiance.
Bangladeshi veterans of the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–89), notably the widely cited founder Maulana Abdus Salam and the later executed leader Mufti Abdul Hannan, returned home to establish Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B) in April 1992. Their organisation orchestrated bombings and targeted killings, leaving a violent imprint on the country’s politics. This Afghan returnee legacy still influences how a segment of Bangladeshi youth view the Taliban today, not just as distant rulers of Kabul, but as an inspirational model of faith-driven defiance.
HuJI-B aims to establish Islamic Hukumat (rule) in Bangladesh by waging war and killing progressive intellectuals. It draws inspiration from Osama bin Laden and the erstwhile Taliban regime of Afghanistan. In the past, the group has used the slogan, Amra Sobai Hobo Taliban, Bangla Hobe Afghanistan (We will all become Taliban and we will turn Bangladesh into Afghanistan). HuJI-B recruits are indoctrinated in the mould of radical Islam.
While militant outfits such as HuJI-B represent the violent extreme, their ideological influence often seeps into more subtle spaces, particularly within the expanding network of religious education. The rise in madrasa enrolments – educational institutions or religious schools that teach Islamic subjects – over the past 20 years reflects not militancy, but the growing social weight of conservative religious identity in Bangladesh.
In 2022, for example, from Ibtedai (primary level) to Kamil (postgraduate equivalent), a total of more than four million students were enrolled in the country’s Alia madrasas – the highest in the past two decades. In 2019, the figure stood at 3.81 million, meaning student enrolments had increased by 5.63% in three years.
Enrolments in Qawmi madrasas – private Islamic schools – have also risen. These madrasas operate under six separate boards, with the Qawmi Madrasa Education Board (Befaq) being the largest. Over the past three years, the number of students under Befaq has grown by around 100,000.
But alongside admiration, the Taliban also provoke fear and criticism. Bangladeshis who value women’s rights, cultural freedom, and democratic pluralism point to Afghanistan as a warning. The Taliban’s ban on girls’ education, harsh restrictions on women, and strict curbs on art and culture fuel fears that a similar situation could happen in Bangladesh.
That tension has sharpened since the July 2024 uprising, when student protests over job quotas spiralled into a nationwide revolt that ended then prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year authoritarian rule. Her sudden departure left a political vacuum. With the familiar Awami League–Bangladesh Nationalist Party rivalry weakened, a wide array of Islamist forces stepped into the space. Their language does not always mirror the Taliban’s, but Kabul’s fall energised them.
Beyond Jamaat-e-Islami, whose ban was lifted after the uprising, groups that advocate for an Islamic political system, such as Hefazat-e-Islam (HeI), Islami Andolon Bangladesh (IAB) and Bangladesh Khelafat-E-Majlis (BKEM), are regaining confidence. Their leaders may not directly cite the Taliban, but their supporters and activists have a fondness for the Afghan-style regime. New coalitions of conservative clerics are also positioning themselves as defenders of Islamic values.
In a sign of thickening connections, a seven-member delegation of Islamist parties led by BKEM chief Mamunul Haque visited Afghanistan on 17 September by invitation of the Taliban government.
The politics has been strategically leveraged by Islamist parties, most notably by the Jamaat-e-Islami, to push for their constitutional agenda. While parties and groups such as HeI, IAB and BKEM are gaining momentum, they are also using organised political tactics to secure structural power through the reform process.
As of November 2025, they are a unified, vocal bloc within the National Consensus Commission, making the shift from the current system to a proportional representation (PR) electoral system their central demand. Under the current system, their significant but dispersed vote share earns them few seats; a PR system, however, would likely guarantee them a substantial bloc in the next parliament. By also demanding an immediate, separate popular referendum to validate the July National Charter, these groups are using the reform process to institutionalise their power and fundamentally shift Bangladesh's secular-leaning democratic framework rightward.
This growth alarms rights groups and women’s organisations. Bangladesh has long prided itself on gains in gender equality, ranking first in South Asia in the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Index. Activists fear the rise of Islamist parties could undo this progress, pointing to Afghanistan as the logical endpoint of unchecked religious politics.
The Taliban’s popularity in Bangladesh is less about Afghanistan and more about Bangladesh itself: frustration with corruption, anxiety over identity, and disappointment with secular elites.
Security officials are equally uneasy. Bangladesh has endured Islamist militancy before, from the 2001 Ramna bombing and the 2005 nationwide bomb blasts to the 2016 Holey Artisan Bakery attack where terrorists killed 22 people including foreigners. Although those networks were disrupted, many counter-terrorism analysts warn that Taliban imagery is inspiring small clusters of radicalised youth. The danger lies not in direct organisational links but in the narrative: if the Taliban can defeat the United States, why can’t Bangladeshi youth defeat a corrupt or un-Islamic government?
The international implications are serious. Bangladesh’s economy relies on garment exports, remittances, and foreign investment. Any perception of radical drift risks Western partnerships sensitive to human rights. The ability of Taliban leaders to negotiate recognition from powers such as India, China and Russia is sometimes cited in Bangladesh as proof that “Islamic governments” can coexist with the world. But with Bangladesh deeply tied to global markets, such a path would be far riskier.
Still, the July uprising itself was not Islamist-led. It was students demanding fairness and accountability. Their movement gave birth to the National Citizen Party and proved alternative voices exist. Many urban middle-class Bangladeshis remain fiercely protective of their cultural life – music, theatre, literature – and see it as inseparable from national identity. For them, the Taliban are a warning, not a role model.
The Taliban’s popularity in Bangladesh is less about Afghanistan and more about Bangladesh itself: frustration with corruption, anxiety over identity, and disappointment with secular elites. Islamist parties seize on Kabul’s story to argue for stricter religious order, while opponents invoke the same example as a nightmare scenario. For now, the Taliban remain both a symbol of pride and a shadow of dread in Bangladesh as the country searches for its future.
