Pro-Islamic State’s Al-Bengal Media Targets Bangladesh’s Democracy Ahead of Elections
Jihadist Media Continues Propaganda Assault on Bangladesh’s Fragile Democracy
Bangladesh is set to hold general elections on February 12, 2026, marking the first national polls since the ouster of Sheikh Hasina in August 2024 and unfolding amid a volatile political realignment.
The electoral landscape is increasingly shaped by the resurgence of previously banned Jamaat-e-Islami, the street-level ‘mob’ mobilization of Hefazat-e-Islam and Tawhidi Janata, and the renewed prominence of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), a coalition long viewed as more accommodating of Islamist and pro-Pakistan constituencies. This convergence has sharpened ideological polarization, weakened consensus around secular constitutionalism, and expanded the public space for Islamist narratives to contest democratic norms. The incumbent chief advisor of the interim government, Muhammad Younus, is taking all care to conduct a free and fair election, though he and his team seem powerless amid a rising anti-minority and anti-democracy sentiment in the country.
In this charged pre-election environment, marked by political uncertainty, legitimacy debates, and heightened religious mobilization, transnational jihadist formations such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State factions are attempting to reassert themselves by intensifying propaganda campaigns against democracy and by seeking to establish sharia rule in Bangladesh.
This commentary examines the Pro-Islamic State’s poster campaign in Bangladesh since mid-2025 and how Al-Bengal’s propaganda efforts have intensified, aiming to weaken Bangladesh’s democratic institutions and promote the establishment of a transnational caliphate.
Since mid-2025, the Islamic State’s Bengali-language propaganda campaign clearly aimed to exploit Bangladesh’s political shift after Sheikh Hasina’s tenure. This effort seeks to undermine democracy and revive the caliphate narrative within mainstream Islamist discussions. Operating through the largely informal yet increasingly organized Al-Bengal Media network, IS has advanced from general jihadist appeals to a focused ideological campaign targeting elections, government authority, and constitutional processes. The timing is deliberate and aligns with IS’s known strategy of testing transitional periods when political legitimacy is challenged and trust in institutions is fragile.
The ouster of Sheikh Hasina removed not only a long-standing political figure but also a regime that had enforced a relatively hard line against jihadist networks after the 2016 Holey Artisan attack. In the months following her exit, Bangladesh entered a period of uncertainty marked by debates over electoral legitimacy, political realignments, and renewed visibility of Islamist actors in the public sphere. For IS strategists, this interregnum presented an opportunity structure: a moment when democracy could be reframed not as a stabilising mechanism but as evidence of moral decay and foreign imposition. The Al-Bengal campaign is best understood as an attempt to weaponise this moment psychologically rather than militarily.
Islamic State's Incitement Narrative Ahead of Bangladesh’s July 2024 Political Upheaval
In an April 2024 message (THE OPPRESSED MUSLIMS IN BANGLADESH, Voice of Khurasan, Number 34) circulated by Islamic State–Khorasan (IS-K) province, the group sought to mobilise Bangladeshi supporters of the Islamic Caliphate by framing the national election as evidence of democratic decay and foreign subservience. It accused the ruling (Awami League) government of consolidating power through alignment with “Crusader” forces, portraying electoral politics as a mechanism to secure Western approval rather than popular legitimacy.
The feature cast democratic governance as inherently corrupt and oppressive, claiming that the population was engaged in a continuous struggle to free itself from systemic injustice. However, central to the narrative was the assertion that Bangladesh’s democratic order rejects Qur’anic law and Islamic principles, rendering it morally illegitimate. ISKP’s message further implied that the state’s actions were driven by fear of the “soldiers of the Khilafah,” whom it presented as the only actors capable of offering a just and spiritually valid alternative. ISKP reproduced and recirculated the Voice of Khurasan message as a five-page booklet again in August 2024, just days after the violence that led to the fall of the Hsina government.
From March 2025 onward, IS Bengal’s Bengali-language poster propaganda focused on ideological conditioning. Early posters such as “The Call to Strive” invoked the Battle of Badr and juxtaposed peaceful religious observance with the supposed obligation of violent struggle, cultivating guilt and moral urgency. This was followed by “700 Times Reward”, which reframed financial contribution to jihad as religious charity, promising divine multiplication of sacrifice. These messages laid the groundwork by sacralising commitment and normalising support for jihad as worship. By late March, the appearance of graffiti on a wall proclaiming “The Caliphate is Coming” in Arabic, English, and Bengali marked a shift toward public-facing ideological presence and territorial signalling.
As Bangladesh’s political transition deepened, the campaign sharpened its polemical edge. In May 2025, the poster titled “Lies” attacked rival jihadist and Islamist actors, accusing them of hypocrisy and betrayal. The objective was not merely rivalry but ideological monopolisation: to portray IS as the sole authentic representative of jihad, uncompromised by nationalism or engagement with the state. A subsequent poster, “When Will this Lockdown End?”, used metaphors of chains and light, declaring “We are coming with the army of light.” This language was designed to sustain morale and reinforce inevitability during a period when IS lacked operational visibility in Bangladesh.
“In your hand is the thread/string of democracy,
In my hand is the scissors. To cut your control, we are calling Mujahid brothers, Oh Mujahid brothers. Come forward, the brothers of Bengal are ready.
Join us. Together with us, across the entire country, we will stand united and resist/stop the satanic forces.”(IS BengaL poster text (English Translation: January 29, 2026)
The most consequential evolution in the campaign emerged as the election calendar approached. The January 2026 poster explicitly targeting democracy represents a qualitative escalation. “In your hand is the thread of democracy; in my hand is the scissor” portrays democracy as fragile, manipulative, and morally empty, while martyrdom is elevated as the only dignified political choice. This framing draws directly from IS doctrine, which treats popular sovereignty as shirk and voting as apostasy. What distinguishes this poster is its localisation and timing. It is undoubtedly aimed at Bangladeshi voters on the eve of the national polls, which are merely a few days away.
This is, however, a direct call to arms against “democracy,” urging mujahideen to join and fight “shaytani shakti” (satanic/evil forces), a common phrasing in Islamist militant propaganda in Bangladesh. The imagery (raised index finger over the national flag, broken chains) symbolizes defiance of Islamist forces and jihadist resistance.
For the early 2025 poster campaign of IS Bengal, read below:
Is Islamic State Bengal Province in the Making?
Recent jihadist propaganda materials from the so-called Al-Bengal Media, a seemingly unofficial Islamic State mouthpiece, suggest an intensified ideological push to establish a wilayat (province) in Bengal. These efforts, rooted in IS's broader ambitions to maintain its global foothold despite territorial losses in Iraq and Syria, warrant a closer exami…
The visual semiotics reinforce the message. The raised index finger, a symbol of tawhid, is bound by chains, opposing the inked finger of democratic voting. The red circle representing Bangladesh’s flag hints at territorial aspiration without a formal declaration of a wilayat. The shroud replaces the ballot as the emblem of agency. Collectively, these symbols signal that IS is not merely rejecting democracy but presenting an alternative political theology in which citizenship is replaced by martyrdom and the nation-state by the caliphate. The significance of this campaign lies less in immediate operational threat than in its corrosive impact on democratic legitimacy.
However, there were signs of impending violence in Bangladesh, coinciding with IS Bengal’s overtures. On December 26, 2025, a powerful explosion at Ummul Quran International Madrasa in South Keraniganj's Hasnabad area injured four people, including the madrasa director Sheikh Al-Amin (also known as Al Amin Sheikh or Rajib) and his family. Al-Amin, a prime suspect and member of the Tamim-Sarwar Group (also called Neo-JMB linked to Islamic State Bengal), fled after admitting his injured family members to the hospital. Police raids following the blast revealed a large stash of bomb-making materials at the madrasa, including about 250 kg of chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide used in TATP/high explosives, two improvised explosive devices (IEDs), five electric bomb-like devices, crude bombs, cocktails, and other components.
Though major Islamic State-backed violence is averted for now in Bangladesh, by persistently portraying elections as apostasy and the state as satanic, the jihadist group seeks to discourage participation, intimidate vulnerable communities, and delegitimise any post-election government before it consolidates authority. This approach mirrors IS tactics observed elsewhere, where election cycles were exploited to project state weakness and recruit disaffected youth even when the group’s territorial control was minimal.
Post-Hasina Bangladesh, marked by political polarisation and institutional uncertainty, provides fertile ground for such narratives. The Al-Bengal campaign demonstrates that IS recognises this vulnerability and is investing in low-cost, high-impact propaganda to exploit it. The absence of a formally announced “Islamic State of Bengal” should not obscure the trajectory. What is unfolding is an attempt to establish ideological infrastructure, normalising anti-democratic extremism, discrediting rivals, and embedding the caliphate narrative into Bengali discourse.
In this sense, the Islamic State of Bengal’s poster campaign represents a strategic challenge rather than an episodic threat. It is an effort to reshape how democracy itself is perceived at a critical political juncture. If left unchallenged, such messaging risks outlasting the election cycle, embedding a narrative in which democratic participation is morally suspect and violent rejection of the state is framed as religious virtue. For Bangladesh, the danger lies not only in what IS might do during the polls, but in what it seeks to undo, the very legitimacy of democratic governance in a society already navigating a fragile transition.
All eyes are now on February 12 and what the future holds for Bangladesh, as the world watches to see how pro-Islamic State jihadists (and other formations) in the country and beyond will respond after the election process.