“The Khilafah’s Soldiers in Bengal”: Analysing the Islamic State Jihadists and Their Violence Justification Narratives in Bangladesh

The Islamic State (IS) is going through a shift in its strategy and tactics with a major organisational restructuring in the post-Caliphate phase. Instead of controlling a territory with a centralised system, the jihadist organisation is attempting to expand its ideologies via local affiliates, exploiting existing local grievances. Although South Asia receives priority in IS’ ambition of expansion, the extant literature on the role of the jihadist outfit in the region, especially in Bangladesh, is scant. To address this lacuna, this study explores the development of IS affiliated groups in Bangladesh and portrays its origin, leadership, target, goals and international connections. It also explains how Bangladeshi foreign fighters were recruited for IS and who the key persons were behind Bangladeshis’ IS connections. This study shows that while the Bangladesh government squarely refused to acknowledge the presence of IS in Bangladesh, IS claimed responsibilities of several attacks and indicated their long-term plan to control the region in the future. This study also analyses jihadist content, including IS’ flagship magazine Dabiq, Rumiyah, their videos and Telegram channels, and finds their violence justification narrative employed in Bangladesh. It finds that there are mainly three themes in the Bangladeshi jihadist narrative: perceived crisis construct, solution construct, and justification of jihad as the only way to reach the solution from the existing crisis.