Asif Adnan Shuvo

Son of retired High Court judge Justice Abdus Salam Mamun, Asif Adnan Shuvo, 26, was arrested by detectives on September 24, 2014. His associate, Fazle Elahi Tanzil, 24, was also arrested the same day.

Asif Adnan got bail on December 24 of the same year. AF Hasan Ariff, an adviser to the Yunus-led interim government who died recently, stood for the jihadist.

After the August 5 changeover, he has been speaking at Islamic conferences. His videos on jihad in Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Palestine and Christian countries are available on YouTube.

Photos and videos show that Asif Adnan actively participated in the anti-Awami League movement. UK-based 5pillars interviewed him too. Moreover, he is linked to Hasnat Abdullah, a top leader of the Jatiya Nagorik Party.

Detectives said they retrieved text messages that Asif and Tanzil had exchanged. The duo had also sent text messages to different cell phone numbers to encourage others to join jihad.

In a text message to Tanzil, Asif wrote: “I just want to be in the land of jihad. Among the Mujahideen. Living a life only for Allah.”

According to another message, Asif was waiting for instructions on whether to leave for Syria or Myanmar. “It depends on the directives of AQIS [al-Qaeda in Indian Sub-Continent] and Nusra [al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, al-Nusra Front],” the message read.

They planned to go to Syria to be trained up by the Nusra brigade and return to launch an AQIS network in Bangladesh.

Based on information provided by them, detectives arrested Samiun Rahman alias Ibne Hadan, a 31-year-old British citizen of Bangladeshi origin, on September 28.

Samiun entered Bangladesh on February 25, 2014, and set up a base to gather fighters to send to Syria to join the so-called jihad. Before Bangladesh, he had visited Syria, Turkey and Morocco on the same mission.

He got bail in April 2017 and entered India in July. The Indian authorities arrested him in September on charges of setting up bases in Delhi, Mizoram and Manipur to radicalise and recruit young Muslims to wage a war against India and Myanmar.

A month after the arrest of the trio, Abdullah Al Ghalib, the son of former army major Mohammad Abdullah, expressed allegiance to ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and praised al-Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in a video message in October 2014 on behalf of his outfit Junud At-Tawheed Wal Khilafah.

Ghalib was arrested on May 31, 2015, and remained traceless after securing bail. He was associated with the trio and Tamim Chowdhury, who was the operational head of the ISIS in Bangladesh, and Syed Ziaul Haque, a Hizb ut-Tahrir leader who was dismissed from the military for jihadist connections and a coup attempt in 2011.

A mastermind of the 2016 Gulshan cafe attack, Tamim was killed in an operation along with two other militants during a raid by the joint forces at a house in Narayanganj on August 27, 2016.

Al Jazeera reporter Zulkarnain Saer Khan Sami, US-based Islamist YouTuber Elias Hossain, France-based radical influencer Pinaki Bhattacharjee, and their patron Mahmudur Rahman, who is also the editor of Jamaat-backed newspaper the daily Amar Desh, are helping Zia get the clean chit.

In an interview with Zulkarnain Saer, Zia said he was preparing to apply for an exemption of his name from the US government’s $5 million reward for his trace, denying his involvement with militancy and AQIS.

Zia also urged the Bangladeshi interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus to persuade the US to get his name dropped. Bangladeshi media reports suggest that Zia entered the country with a Pakistani passport in late December and applied to the government for withdrawal of criminal charges via his counsel, Barrister Sarwar Hossain.

He also asked the army chief to reinstate him and award him the gallantry award “Bir Uttam” for his role in the coup attempts in 2011 and 2024.