SM Shafiuddin Ahmed

Military career Colonel Ahmed (left) with then general officer commanding of ARTDOC, Major General Ziaur Rahman at the Bangladesh Military Academy on 2008. General Ahmed presenting a commemorative memento to Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on 2024. After commission, Ahmed started his military career in the counter-insurgency operation area of Chittagong Hill Tracts. He served as battalion commander at Bangladesh Military Academy, and commanded one infantry battalion and also a military police unit. As brigadier general, Ahmed commanded an infantry brigade and served as the director of military training at the general staff branch of army headquarters. He was ameliorated to major general in 2012 and appointed as general officer commanding 19th infantry division and area commander Ghatail Area. Ahmed also served as doctrine commander at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies as the director general, National Defence College as the senior directing staff and furthermore commander of logistics area.

On 25 August 2019, he was promoted to lieutenant general and made the general officer commanding of ARTDOC.

As chief of army staff General Ahmed with then Director of Army National Guard General Daniel R. Hokanson and former adjutant general of Oregon National Guard Major General Michael E. Stencel at the Pentagon on 20 April 2022. On 24 June 2021, Ahmed was upgraded to general and was appointed as 17th chief of army staff succeeding general Aziz Ahmed. He was the president of Bangladesh Olympic Association and Bangladesh Golf Federation and also acted as the president of the executive committee of Kurmitola Golf Club. He was also the vice chairman of the governing body of the National Defence College and Defence Services Command & Staff College, Council of the Military Institute of Science and Technology. He attended the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2024. After the beginning of the Myanmar Civil War, he asserted that the army was ready to respond to any threats from Myanmar. During the 2024 election, he deployed troops to maintain law and order.

Ahmed went to leave per retirement on 23 June 2024 succeeded by General Waker-Uz-Zaman as chief of army staff. He was the last general of the Fourth Hasina ministry.

Allegation of role in enforced disappearance Shafiuddin Ahmed has been accused of playing a direct role in a case of enforced disappearance, a phenomenon that became widespread during the rule of Sheikh Hasina.

On 30 September 2024, Barrister M. Sarwar Hossain, a retired major of the Bangladesh Army, lodged an official complaint with the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances against Shafiuddin and two other army generals, namely Lieutenant General Mohammad Akbar Hossain and Major General Md Sarwar Hossain, for their alleged roles in his unlawful detention at the headquarters of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence.

Barrister Sarwar alleged that the officers summoned him at the DGFI headquarters at the false pretext of responding to a legal notice on 27 October 2016 and then pressured him to drop a divorce case involving Shafiuddin’s eldest daughter, in which Barrister Sarwar was representing the husband in civil court. He also stated to journalists that the generals threatened to send him to Aynaghar, a codename for covert military detention centers for dissidents of the Hasina administration whose details became publicly known only after 2022.

He was released after more than eleven hours of detention, but only after providing a written commitment that he would drop the case and not disclose the details of his abduction, the complaint stated.

Personal life Shafiuddin Ahmed is married to Noorjahan Ahmed, and has two daughters. On 6 August 2026, he was produced to the International Crimes Tribunal and shown arrest under the Ilias Ali case.

Family's political involvement

S. M. Shafiuddin Ahmed hails from a family of active involvement in Awami League politics.

His older sister Runu Reza is a Khulna-based Awami League politician and former lawmaker who entered politics after her husband and central vice chairman of Jubo League Shahid Iqbal Bithar was gunned down in 2010 at the aftermath of party infighting. Runu Reza was later implicated in corruption in relation to usurping government plots during her tenure as an MP.

His older brother S. M. Rafiuddin Ahmed Rafiq is also an Awami League leader and former panel mayor of the Khulna City Corporation. As the interim government launched the Operation Devil Hunt in November 2024 in response to countrywide violence and sabotages by Awami League members following their party's ouster from government by the July Uprising, Rafiuddin was arrested by the joint forces on 30 November 2024 from Khulna metropolitan area for his alleged role in subversive activities. It was subsequently revealed that the International Crimes Tribunal had received two formal complaints against him for his alleged role in the massacre of July protesters, leading to his formal arrest under those charges.