The elevation in status of Khalilur Rahman, to the position of Bangladesh’s National Security Advisor (NSA), even as he would concurrently hold the job of High Representative for the Rohingya Issue and Priority Affairs, may pit him against General Waker-uz-Zaman who, as the Army chief, is the de facto arbiter of the country’s external and internal security.
Rahman’s appointment on April 9 as the NSA was as sudden as it was surprising, considering that Gen Zaman was on an official visit to Russia and Croatia. Gen Zaman returned to Dhaka today.
Questioning the timing of the Mohammad Yunus-led interim authority’s move, knowledgeable Bangladeshi officials said Rahman’s elevation in status could “potentially pit him against the Army chief” at a time when the Bangladesh Army is expected to play a key role in any likely military developments in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
Since the time the Yunus-led interim authority took power by toppling the Sheikh Hasina regime in August 2024, Gen Waker has played a “stablising role” in a Bangladesh which oscillated between uncertainty and chaos as it was – and continues to be – without a functioning law and order machinery.
No sooner did the Yunus administration assume office did Islamist extremism get a free run with the law and home ministries agreeing to release convicted terrorists and other offenders from jail.
While violence spiralled upwards and murders, rapes, communal violence and political vendetta became routine with the Yunus regime exhibiting apathy in containing “extremist forces”.
The students and their ‘leaders’, who led the July-August 2024 movement against Hasina, became a law unto themselves.
In the midst of this seeming chaos, Gen Zaman sought to mediate and follow a “middle course”, aimed to neither upset the Islamists nor antagonise the Yunus administration.
While this admittedly did not lead to completely arresting the country’s downward spiral, in March, he sent out a strong message that he would be forced to act if the situation did not improve.
Besides Bangladeshi political analysts, who believe that Khalilur Rahman’s elevation – he holds a US passport and is a resident of Connecticut – as NSA would, willy-nilly, bring him into a collision-course situation with Gen Zaman, there are other such as Supreme Court barrister Major (retd) Sarwar Hossain who said that the move was to “place Khalilur Rahman at par with India’s Ajit Doval”.
Hossain said, “perhaps the aim to balance power between Rahman and Gen Zaman played at the back of Yunus’ mind”, but his appointment as the NSA should “now be rescinded” and a “befitting” person – a former Army officer or a seasoned senior diplomat, for instance – should be made Bangladesh topmost national security bureaucrat.
In the backdrop of reports about Rahman’s indirect involvement with a female government staffer in 2001 when the woman was murdered by her husband, Hossain agreed that Rahman’s “antecedents should have been thoroughly checked and that a proper vetting procedure should have been followed”.
“What is, however, surprising is that the Yunus regime did not hold high level consultations before appointing the new NSA. It could be that such a move was necessitated to keep Rahman in good humour,” Hossain said.
Reacting to Rahman’s appointment as NSA, Dhaka-based political analyst Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah said, “It has been reported that at least eight advisors in the interim authority, including Khalilur Rahman, are foreign passport holders. This does not speak highly of the regime. Besides, Rahman will now be more amenable to the way the US views its security interests in Bangladesh and Myanmar”.
