Troubling Trendlines

Posted: July 26th, 2016

By Michael Kugelman

Michael Kugelman is the senior associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center. His main specialty is Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan and U.S. relations with each of them. Mr. Kugelman writes monthly columns for Foreign Policy's South Asia Channel and monthly commentaries for War on the Rocks. He also contributes regular pieces to the Wall Street Journal's Think Tank blog. He has also produced a number of longer publications on South Asia, including the edited volumes Pakistan's Interminable Energy Crisis: Is There Any Way Out?, Pakistan's Runaway Urbanization: What Can Be Done?, and India's Contemporary Security Challenges. Mr. Kugelman received his M.A. in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. He received his B.A. from American University's School of International Service.

Earlier this month, after ISIS claimed responsibility for a brazen and bloody assault on a café in Dhaka, Bangladesh, analysts pointed to the attack as more proof of the group’s geographically expanding reign of terror.

ISIS’s increasing profile in Bangladesh is certainly cause for concern. The group has minced no words that the country is firmly in its crosshairs: Its official propaganda has issued threats to Bangladesh, and it has claimed several attacks there in recent years.

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