Mohammad Saifullah Ozaki

Mohammad Saifullah Ozaki (born Sajit Chandra Debnath in 1982), also known by the Shaykh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, is a Bangladeshi and Japanese academic and militant and former member of the Islamic State. Born to a Hindu family in Bangladesh, Ozaki studied in Japan, where he acquired several degrees, converted from Hinduism to Islam, and eventually married and became a naturalised Japanese citizen. He was an associate professor at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto until 2015, when he and his family disappeared from the country. He was named the emir of the Islamic State in Bangladesh. He is alleged to have been responsible for promoting the Islamic State on Facebook and recruiting Bangladeshis to travel to Syria to support it, as well as plotting a terrorist attack in Dhaka. In March 2019, Ozaki surrendered to the Syrian Democratic Forces in Baghouz, Syria. A new emir for the Islamic State in Bengal was named within two months.

Early life and education Mohammad Saifullah Ozaki was born in 1982 as Sajit Chandra Debnath to Hindu parents Janardan Debnath and Anima Rani Debi in Nabinagar, Bangladesh, about from Dhaka. Before leaving for Japan, his mother stated that he would spend his time reading books and praying in Hindu temples. He attended graduate school at the same university, having earned both a master's degree and PhD by March 2011, also obtaining a doctorate with business expertise from Kyushu University in 2010.

Academic career and radicalisation Debnath authored or co-authored over thirty papers over the course of his academic career. becoming an associate professor of business administration at the College of International Relations in April 2015. His family noticed him behaving unusually as early as 2008, when he returned to Bangladesh to attend his sister's wedding, attempting to hide the beard that he had grown with a surgical mask. His last contact with his family was on 5 January 2016, when Debnath's father called him to ask about a recent police inquiry. During the call, Debnath claimed that a friend of his was framing him for funding a charitable organisation. When asked why he was funding an organisation considered "bad" by authorities, Debnath ended the call. ) on an Islam-related Facebook group for graduates of Bangladeshi military academies. After joining the group in January, Ozaki met Sohan in person at a mosque in Dhaka in May. It was at the mosque that Ozaki told Sohan that with a Japanese visa, Sohan could easily enter Turkey, through which he could reach Syria to join ISIL. Ozaki became Sohan's visa guarantor, allowing him to stay at his house in Japan that November. The next month, Ozaki instructed Sohan to travel from Turkey to Syria, which Sohan did via bus.

On 1 July 2016, five militants attacked a bakery in Dhaka, taking dozens of hostages, including 18 foreigners. Twenty hostages and two police officers were killed, as well as all five militants. Multiple sources claimed that Ozaki was believed to be responsible for planning the attack, His location remained unknown, variously reported to be in Syria, Indonesia, or Malaysia.

He was detained in the Kurdish city Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq,

Identity of al-Hanif While a 2017 Dhaka Tribune article identified Ozaki as having "most likely" been the individual the Islamic State called its emir of Bengal, al-Hanif, it also mentioned that a Bangladeshi newspaper had previously speculated that al-Hanif was actually Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury in June 2016. This claim was refuted by the Islamic State in October 2016, which stated that Chowdhury's real kunya was Abu Dujanah al-Bengali and that he was the "former head of military and covert operations of the soldiers of the Khilafah in Bengal".

Personal life Ozaki introduced his father to a female neighbour named Rina during a visit in 2006, whom Ozaki married in 2007. FNN writer Akari Iiyama described Ozaki's Dabiq interview as expressing his anger and hate toward unbelievers. She stated that despite having lived, studied, and worked in the country, Ozaki failed to assimilate to Japanese values, instead developing an anti-Japanese ideology and ending up being responsible for the deaths of Japanese citizens, who were among the foreign nationals who died in the bakery attack.