Lt Gen AB Shivane, PVSM, AVSM, VSM (Retd) | Formerly with Indian Army |
By the end of 2025, it was no longer honest to pretend that Islamist radicalism had been “contained”. It had survived battlefield defeats, sanctions, surveillance, and years of official optimism. What changed was not its intent but its method. It learned to move quietly, recruit invisibly, and strike ruthlessly without warning.
On 10 November, 2025 the bombing near Delhi’s Red Fort killed fifteen people after a Hyundai i20 packed with explosives was driven into the metro entrance during evening peak hour. A month later, the Bondi Beach promenade in Sydney became a killing field when an ISIS‑inspired father and son opened fire on a Hanukkah gathering, murdering fifteen and leaving an ISIS flag amid the bodies. In the United States, Shamsud Din Jabbar used a truck as a weapon on New Year’s Day, ploughing through revellers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans in an attack he dedicated to the so‑called caliphate, while Rahmanullah Lakanwal shot down National Guard personnel in Washington, D.C., on 26 November, shouting jihadist slogans.
Taken together, and viewed against the backdrop of state‑enabled radical networks in Pakistan, the growing Islamist churn in Bangladesh and Islamic countries, these incidents point not to isolated tragedies but to an Islamist ideology that has learned to live off disorder. The uncomfortable question is whether divided governments can still build a common front before this spiral produces something even worse.
Shadows of Inspired Carnage
The Delhi bomb blast was not an improvised outburst but a carefully staged operation. Investigators believe the attacker drew on support from local modules with links across the border, choosing the Red Fort precinct both for its footfall and its symbolism as a marker of Indian statehood. Forensic work has already pointed to components and precursors moved along familiar smuggling trails from India’s more permeable frontiers, a reminder that the infrastructure of past terror campaigns was never fully dismantled, only pushed into the shadows. The strike followed a pattern seen before in Indian cities, yet the level of refinement and the choice of target suggest that experienced handlers were again in play, turning an ordinary weekday journey into a calculated mass murder.
Australia’s Bondi Beach nightmare exposed the long arm of virtual jihad. The perpetrators, recent travellers to extremism-riddled Philippine islands, channelled ISIS propaganda into action against Jewish revellers. Police uncovered digital trails of encrypted vows to the caliphate, highlighting how lone actors morph into killers via online grooming. The Hanukkah targeting revealed calculated hatred, blending antisemitism with global jihadist calls to strike infidels during festivals.
America faced dual horrors reflecting imported and homegrown threats. Jabbar’s New Orleans truck attack mirrored European vehicle ramming’s, his ISIS flag and manifesto broadcast live as he mowed down revellers toasting the new year. The DC shooting by Lakanwal, an Afghan with radical ties, targeted symbols of military might.
Radical Islam is spreading across Europe among descendants of Muslim immigrants. Sidelined by mainstream society and frustrated by the lack of integration, a section of Muslim youth in Europe has vented its wrath in jihad against the West. The response by Paris has been to cancel all the public Christmas and New Year parties this year due to the threat of large-scale attacks. Security has been intensely stepped up by the presence of threats around Christmas markets all over the city.
These incidents, spaced months apart, illustrated tactical evolution: vehicles for mass impact, firearms for precision, all fuelled by an ideology that transcends borders.
State Complicity Fuels the Fire
Pakistan’s Inter‑Services Intelligence sits at the centre of a carefully built extremist system. Years of “strategic depth” thinking created partnerships with jihadist outfits that now strike back as Tehrik‑e‑Taliban Pakistan bombs its own seminaries and cities. ISI handlers allegedly funnel arms and sanctuary to operatives striking Delhi, perpetuating a proxy war under nuclear shadows. This unholy pact sustains radical pipelines, training camps dispatching foot soldiers to urban targets. Without dismantling these networks, South Asia remains a tinderbox, radicalism metastasising through state blindness or endorsement.
Bangladesh’s post-Hasina turmoil accelerated the Islamist resurgence. The interim regime under Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus lifted bans on Jamaat e Islami, unleashing street mobs that torched Hindu temples and silencing minorities. ISI delegations visited Dhaka early in the year, weaving anti-India webs that threaten regional stability. Radical preachers filled power vacuums, mosques doubling as recruitment hubs amid economic despair. On December 16, demonstrators threatened Indian diplomatic missions in Dhaka, and on December 17, diplomatic mission in Rajshahi. Violent vows were made against Delhi unless Sheikh Hasina was extradited. This surge threatens spillover into India, with radicalised youth crossing frontiers to execute Delhi-style plots.
These state dynamics amplify private radicalism. Pakistan’s seminaries indoctrinate thousands annually, graduates feeding global jihad from Afghanistan to Australia. Bangladesh’s Hefazat-e-Islam rallies mask deeper conspiracies, blending politics with takfiri violence. Together, they form a radical axis, ISI as quartermaster, Dhaka as willing host, exporting ideology that inspired Bondi and beyond.
Prognosis of Mounting Peril
Unchecked, 2025 trends herald darker horizons. South Asian radicalism could considerably spike attacks by 2026, ISI Bangladesh pacts birthing hybrid threats: drone-aided bombings, cyber radicalised swarms. Western lone actors, doubled in Europe last year, will proliferate via AI-enhanced propaganda, encrypted apps shielding plots from surveillance. Syria’s post-Assad voids already spawn ISIS rebirths, refugee waves carrying seeds to Europe and America.
Geopolitical retreats exacerbate risks. Western drawdowns from the Sahel and Middle East create vacuums filled by Russian and Chinese proxies, indirectly bolstering jihadists through arms flows. Digital frontiers outpace defences; cryptocurrencies fund operations, deepfakes recruit undetected. With no course correcting, high-profile strikes are now the norm and weaken the determination of the people and create backlash to the far right that further destroys alliances.
The ideology prefers dissatisfaction: poverty in the Sahel, unemployment in Dhaka, estrangement in Sydney suburbia. The Jihadist accounts make victims look like tyrants and turn hopelessness into dynamite. Global death tolls, already climbing eleven per cent, project exponential growth absent unity. Prognosis points to a world of fortified enclaves, economies strained by endless security, societies polarised by fear.
Forging a Resolute Counteroffensive
Unity demands trilateral intelligence fortresses uniting India, America, and Australia to map ISI Bangladesh filaments and Philippine transit nodes. Real-time fusion thwarts plots, as seen in disrupted Vienna concerts. Sanction Pakistani aid conditioned on ISI purges; leverage IMF strings on Dhaka for de de-radicalisation mandates before 2026 elections. Designate Label Jamaat e Islami a terrorist front, block assets and operations.
Address the digital poison with AI-powered rebuffs in Urdu, Bengali, and Arabic, flood websites with survivor stories and theological demolitions. Platforms must regulate encrypted silos, international accords mandating backdoors for jihadist traffic. Repatriate and prosecute eight thousand five hundred al-Hol camp detainees, starving inspiration reservoirs.
Bolster soft power pillars: fund governance in radical hotbeds, partnering Muslim states for credible voices debunking caliphate myths. India leads South Asian deradicalisation academies, blending incarceration with rehabilitation to flip foot soldiers. Australia pioneers community sentinels, training imams to spot grooming. America spearheads cyber coalitions, tracing crypto trails to dry funding wells.
Economic warfare complements kinetics. Target hawala networks and gold smuggling sustaining Sahel affiliates. Space-based surveillance tracks camps, and drones neutralise leaders pre-emptively. Train local forces in multi-domain ops, integrating cyber intel with boots on the ground.
Global forums must elevate this threat above great power games. G20 task forces coordinate, UN resolutions bind rogue enablers. Muslim majority nations like Saudi Arabia, UAE front ideological wars, fatwas condemning takfirism as heresy. Success hinges on sustained resolve: half measures breed hydras.
The world stands at an inflexion. Islamist radicalism, adaptive and insidious, tests collective will. Delhi’s ashes, Bondi’s blood, America’s scars demand action beyond rhetoric. Unite now, or surrender streets to shadows. History judges coalitions that endure.
[ Lieutenant General A B Shivane is an NDA alumnus and second-generation Armoured Corps officer with 39+ years of distinguished service, former Strike Corps Commander and DG Mechanised Forces. A scholar-warrior, he has authored 300+ publications, four books, and serves as a strategic advisor, keynote speaker, and defence expert.]
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