A bombshell investigative report has exposed shocking links between Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus’ global Grameen network and financiers of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda, raising grave questions about the integrity of the microfinance empire long hailed as a beacon for the poor.
As Bangladesh reels under Yunus’ unelected interim government, the revelations coincide with mounting evidence of his administration’s deliberate patronage of radical Islamist groups since August 2024—from gutting counter-terror units to freeing jihadists and unleashing mobs against cultural icons and minorities.
Ex-NSI Officer: 50-year-old documents prove Yunus hijacked microcredit idea
Published on November 27 by Bangladesh’s Weekly Blitz, the report—authored by editor Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury—demands an international probe into Yunus’ “transnational financial partnerships.” It paints a picture of a “carefully polished global image” masking a “far darker reality”: Grameen’s deep ties to individuals flagged by Western intelligence as terror funders.
At the centre is Grameen-Jameel Microfinance, a 2007 joint venture between Yunus’ Grameen Foundation and Saudi billionaire Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel’s Abdul Latif Jameel Group. Corporate records show it is headquartered in Dubai’s International Humanitarian City, with an inactive website and deactivated Facebook page—red flags in themselves. The venture, touted as the first “social business” in the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey, claims to have funnelled $65 million to 2.2 million clients across 10 countries by 2013.
But Jameel’s name appears on a March 2003 Wall Street Journal list of Al-Qaeda donors, drawn from CIA intelligence. The report branded him a “key funder” of bin Laden, the architect of the 9/11 attacks. Jameel’s family faced lawsuits from 9/11 victims’ families, and a 2003 Sunday Times exposé linked them to terror financing. In 2006, Britain’s highest court upheld the WSJ’s reporting as vital “investigative journalism” in the public interest. Yet Jameel, who received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for philanthropy, sat on Grameen-Jameel’s board.
Baul songs banned, Wahhabi terrorism legal
Oikya Parishad demands BNP scrap Harun’s candidacy for anti-Hindu rhetoric
Exiled journo Probir Sarker warns of mobocracy crushing Bangladesh media
Zaher Al Munajjed, Grameen-Jameel’s chairman and a Harvard alumnus, served as senior advisor to Jameel. The Blitz report alleges broader Grameen connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and even organ trafficking rings, where desperate borrowers were coerced into selling kidneys to repay loans. “This isn’t charity—it’s a web of shadows,” Choudhury writes, urging global counterterrorism agencies to scrutinise Yunus’ empire.
These revelations land amid a surge in extremism under Yunus’ watch, as documented in a November 28 report by the Canada-based Global Center for Democratic Governance (GCDG): “Resurgence of Extremism in Bangladesh during the Interim Government.” The 42-page assessment warns of a “coordinated, multi-pronged Islamist revival,” exploiting the post-Hasina “institutional vacuum” to push Bangladesh toward theocracy.
Since capturing power last year, the regime has systematically dismantled safeguards. The Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit, credited with neutralising ISIS-linked Neo-JMB and Ansar al-Islam from 2016 to 2024, has been eviscerated. Funding was slashed 70%, experienced officers were purged or investigated for “enforced disappearances” (a charge ex-CTTC leaders call a “cynical smear”), and even its elite bomb-sniffing dogs—Cory, Sam, and Finn—were auctioned off for Tk 630,000 on November 24 at Mirpur Police Lines.
What took their place? The CTTC jailed the very militants they had previously detained. Over 700 hardcore jihadists escaped in August 2024 jailbreaks, with looted arms (1,300 firearms, 250,000 rounds) still circulating. Ansar al-Islam chief Jasimuddin Rahmani, who is al-Qaeda-linked, now lectures publicly. Jama’atul Ansar Fil Hindal Sharqiya’s Shamin Mahfuz was released before being rearrested for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan ties. Hefazat-e-Islam firebrands Mufti Harun Izhar and Mamunul Haque openly preach anti-India jihad.
The banned Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT) staged a defiant “March for Khilafat” in Dhaka in March 2025, drawing hundreds chanting for an Islamic caliphate. Tear gas dispersed them, but the GCDG report notes their “extreme confidence”—amplified by campus recruitment and unchecked online radical videos. Al-Qaeda’s As-Sahab media praised Bangladesh’s “victory for Islam.” Jamaat-e-Islami, delisted for 1971 war crimes the day Yunus took power, is now allied with Hefazat, demanding women’s reforms be scrapped and music be banned from schools.
Interview With India Today: Sheikh Hasina censures Pakistan-backed extremism
Extremism: India, Myanmar, Nepal should be cautious about Bangladesh
Rise of Extremism: Yunus defends dropping music, PE teachers in primary schools
The social carnage is devastating. From August 2024 to June 2025, 2,442 attacks targeted minorities—Hindus (8% of the population), Christians, Buddhists, Ahmadis, and indigenous groups—per the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council. That includes 258 communal assaults, 20 rapes, and 59 temple desecrations in early 2025 alone. Yunus’ regime dismisses them as “political,” acknowledging just 88 cases by December 2024, breeding impunity.
Cultural erasure accelerates. As many as 185 Sufi shrines and 1,494 monuments were demolished; Baul singer Abul Sarkar has been jailed since November 2025 on blasphemy charges for highlighting Quranic inconsistencies—a claim echoed by reformist Mufti Imran bin Bashir. His supporters face “Touhidi Janata” mobs—rebranded Jamaat-Shibir cadres—who thrash victims with rods and chase them into ponds. Police stand by.
Veteran journalist Masood Kamal decries Yunus’ “Faustian bargain”: Touhidi Janata meets Yunus advisers; Islami Chhatra Shibir operates openly under aliases; arrests of Ansarullah Bangla Team and HuT plummet. “This isn’t negligence—it’s policy,” a senior cop told The Daily Republic anonymously. “Intelligence shows attackers are ex-CTTC watchlist figures with Al-Qaeda links. Orders: hands off.”
Gender regression follows: Hefazat’s May 2025 “Grand Rally” derailed women’s reforms, branding advocates “prostitutes.” The draft Cyber Protection Ordinance retains repressive clauses, stifling dissent. November’s uninvestigated bomb blasts at Dhaka’s Holy Rosary Church and St. Mary’s Cathedral flooded social media with “exterminate infidels” calls. National stats: 4,177 murders, 216 lynchings from September 2024 to October 2025.
Geopolitically, Yunus’ pivot—warming to Pakistan, China, and Turkey and demanding Hasina’s extradition from India—revives ISI ops. 125 recruits trained in border camps for northeastern incursions; Rohingya camps as jihad hubs. Anti-India rhetoric, including Jamaat’s “jihad” calls, risks spillover to Myanmar and ASEAN.
GCDG warns Bangladesh nears an “irreversible threshold”—“South Asia’s next Iran, a jihadist bridgehead.” It urges UN probes, sanctions on enablers, and democratic restoration. An ex-CTTC expert laments: “We made Bangladesh safe. Yunus revived the monsters we buried.”
Bengali 
English