Military history of Bangladesh
According to João de Barros, Bengal enjoyed military supremacy over Arakan and Tripura due to good artillery.
[2][3] Bengal had a cosmopolitan military, including Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and mercenaries from Africa, Central and West Asia.
The Mughal Army built fortifications across the region and expelled Arakanese and Portuguese pirates from the northeastern coastline of the Bay of Bengal.
The early military history of the Indian subcontinent included Alexander's invasion of India, which was deterred by the might of Gangaridai Kingdom that was located in present-day Bangladesh, according to most historians.
The Muslim conquest of the Indian subcontinent heralded new military doctrines and hardware, including well-developed artillery.
[1] The chief of the admiralty had various responsibilities, including shipbuilding, transporting personnel, elephants and equipment; recruitment and collecting tolls at ghats.
[1] The sultanate period saw the settlement of many military officers and soldiers from North India, Central and West Asia and the Horn of Africa.
Portuguese historian João de Barros opined that the military supremacy of the Bengal army over that of Arakan and Tripura was due to the efficiency of its artillery.
The Bangladesh Armed Forces were raised from the armed forces of the British Raj, which included the Bengal Regiment and major installations such as the Dhaka Cantonment, Chittagong Cantonment and the Bogra Cantonment.The following includes a list of conflicts which occurred within the territory of Bangladesh under British rule.
There was strong opposition to British involvement against the Turkish War of Independence, as both Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the Ottoman caliphate enjoyed support in Bengal.
[12] Moreover, despite huge defence spending, East Pakistan received none of the benefits, such as contracts, purchasing and military support jobs.
The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 over Kashmir also highlighted the sense of military insecurity among Bengalis as only an under-strength infantry division and 15 combat aircraft without tank support were in East Pakistan to thwart any Indian retaliations during the conflict.
Following the victory of the Awami League in the 1970 elections, then-president General Yahya Khan refused to appoint its leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the prime minister and launched a brutal attack named Operation Searchlight on the civilians of the then East Pakistan, using the Pakistani army to repress political movements.
[16][17] Responding to Mujib's call for rebellion, many students, workers and other civilians mutinied against Pakistan and raised the Mukti Bahini, a guerrilla force.
[26] For many years, there was active discrimination in favour of the inductees from the Mukti Bahini against those Bengali officers who had continued service in the Pakistani armed forces or had been detained in West Pakistan.
[28] Under the presidency of Ziaur Rahman, the military was reorganised to remove conflicts between rival factions and discontented cadre.
[29] However, Ziaur Rahman was himself overthrown in a 1981 coup attempt,[30] and a year later, Lt. Gen. Hossain Mohammad Ershad took power from the elected government of president Abdus Sattar.
The military remained the most important force in national politics under the regimes of Ziaur Rahman and later Hossain Mohammad Ershad until democracy was restored in 1991.
During the first Gulf War in 1991, the Bangladesh Army sent a 2,193 member team to monitor peace in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
The Bangladesh Army also participated in peace keeping activities in Namibia, Cambodia, Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, Mozambique, former Yugoslavia, Liberia, Haiti, Tajikistan, Western Sahara, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Georgia, East Timor, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire and Ethiopia.
Until a peace accord was signed in 1997, the Bangladeshi military engaged in counterinsurgency operations in the Chittagong Hill Tracts fighting the Shanti Bahini separatist group.
[31] Controversy also emerged over possible links maintained by the Bangladeshi military and intelligence agencies with Islamic terrorist groups and anti-India secessionist outfits.
[32][33][34] Several projects and schemes aiming to expand and modernize the Bangladeshi armed forces were launched by the government of former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia.
Forces Goal 2030 was launched by the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to secure new equipment for the Bangladeshi military.
In 2008, the two countries deployed warships after Myanmar attempted to explore a disputed Bay of Bengal seabed for oil and gas.
