Bangladesh Faces Coordinated Disinformation Campaign Targeting Civil-Military Stability and Strategic Autonomy

Reading Time: 3 minutes Since late 2023, a discernible pattern of strategically motivated disinformation targeting Bangladesh’s national security leadership has emerged, largely originating from the Indian digital news outlet NE News. These narratives, often authored by the platform’s senior editor Chandan Nandy, have repeatedly advanced unverified and misleading claims concerning Bangladesh’s civil-military dynamics, foreign policy positioning, and strategic decision-making processes. While presenting themselves as insider intelligence, these reports lack corroborative evidence and are not reflected in any official communiqués or verified domestic coverage. One of the most prominent recent examples includes a report dated 27 May 2025, which claimed that Bangladesh’s National Security Adviser (NSA), Khalilur Rahman, deliberately sidelined the newly appointed Chief of Army Staff, Gen Waker-uz-Zaman, to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. However, open-source verification and official documentation confirm that Gen Waker was neither scheduled nor expected to attend the forum. The NSA’s participation, in contrast, was