UCDP

General information

Part of Conflict: Bangladesh: Islamic State

Date of first stated goals of incompatibility: 2015-11-18
Comment on date of first stated goal of incompatibility: In July 2014, the Islamic State (IS) – a Salafi jihadist militant group with its origins in Iraq – announced that it had established a caliphate in parts of Syrian and Iraq. Furthermore, it demanded the allegiance of all devout Muslims worldwide, and declared that it would continue to seize land to expand its territory across the globe. When the caliphate was proclaimed, IS stated: "The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the khilafah's [caliphate's] authority and arrival of its troops to their areas.”

In the 12th Issue of its Dabiq magazine, published on 18 November 2015, IS confirmed that it had accepted pledges made by Islamist militants, including former Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) members, in Bangladesh. The Dabiq statement read: “The mujāhidīn of Bengal realized that there was no room for blind partisanship towards any organization once the Khilāfah had been declared and that there was no longer legitimacy for any independent jihād organization, whether “Jamā’atul Mujāhidīn,” “Al-Qā’idah,” or any other group. Thus, the sincere men from the various jihād groups rushed to support the Khilāfah and join the ranks of its soldiers in Bengal.

[…]

Thus, the soldiers of the Khilāfah in Bengal pledged their allegiance to the Khalīfah Ibrāhīm (hafidhahullāh), unified their ranks, nominated a regional leader, gathered behind him, dissolved their former factions, performed the necessary military preparations, and hastened to answer the order from the Islamic State leadership, by targeting the crusaders and their allies wherever they may be found

[…]

The murtadd Bengali government will soon realize, by Allah’s permission, that shamelessly denying facts on the ground and playing childish blame games with the murtadd opposition will be of no avail to them, as the Islamic State is indeed here to stay, inshā’allāh”.

Date of first use of armed force: 2015-11-04
Comment on date of first use of armed force: IS claimed responsibility for the murder of a Bangladesh police officer just outside the capital Dhaka; another officer was badly injured in the attack.
First Battle Related Death: 2015-11-04
Comment on First Battle Related Death: IS claimed responsibility for the murder of a Bangladesh police officer just outside the capital Dhaka; another officer was badly injured in the attack.

Date when dyad reached 25 battle releated deaths: 2016-08-29
Comment on date when dyad reached 25 battle related deaths: Bangladesh police shot dead Khalid Hasan alias Badar Mama, a minor IS commander suspected of involvement in the murder of Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella in September 2015. Khalid Hasan’s aide was also killed in the raid, which took place in Bogra district's Sherpur Upazila.

Conflict issues

Conflict Goal Issues: Islamic State, al-Dawla al-Islamiya, (IS) was a Salafist-Sunni Islamist global rebel group that emerged in Iraq and Syria in 2004. The group originally emerged with the goals of toppling the Iraqi regime and replacing the government with an Islamic state with Sharia law as well as ousting the occupying forces currently residing in the country, but its goals drastically shifted as it grew in size to wish to establish a global Islamic caliphate governed by Sharia law. Whilst the group was international for the majority of its existence, IS is considered a rebel group involved in several dyads as the group fought against, and attempted to overthrow, several individual governments as part of its international aims, and has been coded as such. However, many IS statements were not pertaining to specific countries, and the project has, hence, chosen to code them as pertaining to all countries with significant IS presence. Finally, whilst various groups have claimed allyship and adherence to IS, only statements from official IS groups have been coded by the project as legitimate sources for interpreting conflict issues. IS emerged in Bangladesh in 2015 through an accepted declaration of IS allegiance by Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) which became representative of IS in the country. During this year, the group stated several conflict goal issues. They called for the establishment of an Islamic state and for the restoration and protection of Muslim cultural and religious rights. They also implicitly called for the religious rights of non-Muslims to be restricted.

As the conflict progressed, IS reaffirmed its commitment to establishing an Islamic caliphate in Bangladesh and its intention to restrict religious rights, following the group’s killing of a university professor who did not express support for Islam, which IS denoted as a blasphemous act. They also called for the unification of the intended Islamic State of Bangladesh with the larger Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Finally, the group also stated its intent to establish Sharia law in Bangladesh and the Islamic caliphate.

The main conflict goal issue of the IS in Bangladesh was the establishment of an Islamic state, as this was continuously stated as a goal for the group and it was heavily emphasized throughout the brief conflict.

Conflict Dynamics Issues: During the first year of conflict in Bangladesh the IS called for the removal of foreign influence, particularly remnants of “European colonisation and Hindu cultural invasion” and for the collective targeting of non-Muslims. These were the only interpreted conflict dynamics issues pronounced during the coded conflict.

Conflict Resolution Issues: The project coded no statements from IS in Bangladesh pertaining to conflict resolution issues.

Type of conflict issues: The coded conflict issues for this group are: Conflict Goal Issues: Blasphemy, Change judicial system, CPS: Islamic state, Cultural rights, Religious rights, Restrictions on religious rights, Unification of states

Conflict Dynamics Issues: Call for collective targeting: religious, DFI: Removal of foreign influence

Conflict Resolution Issues:

Annual information

This section contains annual information systematically collected by the UCDP.