Red Fort Blast Sparks Fears of Expanding Cross-Border Terror Network in South Asia

A devastating explosion on a bustling street near Delhi’s historic Red Fort last week has emerged as one of the most alarming terror incidents in recent years. While India has seen many such attacks, officials say this one represents a dangerous turning point with potential long-term implications for national security. Investigators now believe the strike was enabled by deepening cooperation between Pakistan-based terror outfits and extremist groups operating out of Bangladesh, forming what intelligence agencies call a rising “grey-zone battlefield” in South Asia.

What is surfacing is not the work of a single mastermind but a wide matrix of militant operatives, safe houses, supply routes and ideological channels that are increasingly linked across both the western and eastern borders.

A Growing Cross-Border Web Raises New Concerns | South Asia Terror Network 2025

Current intelligence assessments indicate that Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Saifullah Saif had hinted on October 30 during a rally in Pakistan’s Khairpur Tamewali that operations were now being directed from “East Pakistan” a clear suggestion of activity inside Bangladesh. Last month, a religious gathering in Dhaka featured the presence of Pakistani terror operatives and Hamas-linked figures. Experts in India have repeatedly warned that groups like Ansar-ul-Bangla Team (ABT), Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh (HUJI-B) and Hizb-ut-Tahrir are showing signs of revival following the release of several inmates charged with extremism after the political upheaval in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh Networks as Key Nodes in the New Axis

Security agencies suspect that the merging of Bangladesh-centred modules with state-backed terror structures in Pakistan could create a potent two-front threat against India. Reports suggest that Jamaat elements may have even been training Rohingya refugees from camps in Ramu and Cox’s Bazar for militant operations in the Arakan region. Multiple ISI teams have travelled to Bangladesh this year, and Indian analysts believe the Pakistani spy agency is expanding its footprint in Dhaka to exploit political instability, activate safe houses in border-adjacent regions such as West Bengal and Assam, and coordinate attacks designed to unsettle India.

A Long Trail of Bangladesh-Linked Cells Across Eastern India

The pattern is not new. Bangladesh-based JMB networks were responsible for the 2014 Burdwan blast in West Bengal, which exposed a sprawling training and recruitment chain operating inside India. Over the years, ABT operatives have been arrested for kidnap plots, reconnaissance, and attempts at bombings across major cities. Between 2009 and 2023, Indian authorities, working closely with the Sheikh Hasina government known for its zero-tolerance approach to terrorism dismantled various cells in Assam, Tripura and Bengal. Yet the porous 4,000-km India-Bangladesh border continues to offer militants easy access due to shared ethnic communities, smuggling routes and infiltrations that blend into everyday movement patterns.

Grey-Zone Warfare: A Strategic Challenge for India

Officials increasingly see these developments as part of a wider grey-zone campaign: a form of conflict conducted through deniable networks and sub-state actors that erode security from within rather than through overt confrontation. Terrain, border economies and political volatility make India’s eastern frontier a prime target for such tactics. Concerns have recently grown that radical elements in Bangladesh may be gaining administrative sympathisers, allowing extremist outfits more freedom to reorganise.

Amid these escalating worries, India is considering diplomatic engagement. A meeting between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and his Bangladeshi counterpart Khalilur Rahman is expected on the sidelines of the Colombo Security Conclave in Delhi this week. Officials say the goal is to revive counterterror cooperation at a time when Dhaka is facing domestic turbulence.

Security experts caution that if this coordinated grey-zone architecture expands further, India may soon confront a two-directional terror ecosystem that is decentralised, adaptive and entrenched in border communities. The Red Fort bombing, they warn, may mark a shift from isolated incidents to integrated, multi-state terror networks capable of sophisticated cross-border operations.

(The content is sourced from agencies and has not been edited by mtimes.co.in.)

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