Dhaka: Last month, US officials told Bangladeshi authorities that they had information suggesting that terrorists linked to Daesh were preparing to ramp up activity within Bangladesh’s borders.

In the days that followed, a series of unusual attacks and threats seemed to substantiate the warnings. An Italian aid worker was fatally shot in this city’s diplomatic zone. A Japanese agriculturalist was shot in the north of the country. On October 24, a bomber sneaked into a huge gathering of Shiites, weaving through rings of police officers before killing a teenage boy and wounding dozens of other people.

After each attack, claims of responsibility by Daesh appeared on social media accounts believed to be used by radicals.

But Shaikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s prime minister, has responded to the developments with suspicion and outright scepticism. Even as foreign embassies informed their citizens that they could become terrorist targets, Bangladeshi officials have insisted that Daesh does not exist in their country. They have noted, pointedly, that the United States has promulgated flawed intelligence in the past, as in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Instead, Hasina has described the episodes as a conspiracy by domestic opposition leaders to tarnish her government’s reputation.

“Bangladesh is moving ahead and it’ll do so,” she said Wednesday. “Let me say one thing: The march forward of Bangladesh can’t be stopped by hurling two bombs or five eggs. Those who are thinking this are making a mistake.”

The disconnect between Bangladesh and foreign intelligence agencies has confused Bangladeshis and foreigners alike, and could complicate efforts to prevent the expansion of international terrorist organisations in South Asia. Their emergence here could be devastating, derailing years of steady economic growth and potentially spilling into India and Pakistan.

For decades, Bangladesh has grappled with a network of domestic extremist cells, some with links to political opposition groups. After a period of dormancy, they appeared to have regrouped this year, carrying out four assassinations of intellectuals who have spoken out against fundamentalism. At the same time, foreign security agencies have tracked Bangladeshi expatriates who are active in Daesh, as both recruiters and fighters, in London; Melbourne, Australia; and other cities.

Command-and-control links between those groups would introduce new dangers for Bangladesh, a democracy with a population of about 160 million, nearly all Sunnis.

“We are taking the Islamic State [Daesh] claim very seriously,” said a senior diplomat in Dhaka, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with protocol. “We see it unfolding around the world.”

So far, evidence of those links is fragmentary. The police here have arrested more than 30 followers of Daesh, mainly students from prosperous families who were planning to travel to Syria or Afghanistan to fight, said Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police. They also arrested a recruiter based in London “who was here to recruit boys,” Islam said.

Ali Riaz, an expert on South Asian politics at Illinois State University, said that he was “seriously sceptical” that major jihadi groups had an “organisational presence” in Bangladesh, but said that homegrown cells were eager to form affiliations.

“If opportunity arises and pathways are found, these local groups will become the IS franchise in no time,” he said.

The story of last month’s warning points to deep-rooted mutual suspicion between Bangladesh and foreign intelligence agencies, even as they try to build cooperation on counterterrorism.

Around a month ago, intelligence agencies from the so-called Five Eyes alliance, which includes Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, received information that militants were planning an attack on foreigners in Bangladesh. On September 25, Australia updated its travel advisory to report “reliable information of a possible militant attack against Australians,” an urgent matter because its national cricket team was set to fly to Dhaka to play Bangladesh in a test match.

The target was believed to be the Glitter Ball, a boozy annual costume party popular with foreigners, who in the past have organized teams dressed as Elvis impersonators, mermaids or the crew on “Star Trek.” Britain and the United States issued similar warnings to their citizens, based on the same information.

On September 27, Bangladesh’s home minister dismissed Australia’s “militancy fears” as “baseless”. US officials, for their part, conveyed a description of the threat to officials travelling with Hasina, then in New York to address the U.N. General Assembly.

She found the warnings frustrating and inconclusive, said Gowher Rizvi, an aide who accompanied her on the trip. He said the United States shared “no actionable intelligence” and did not say where the information originated.

“We have a long history of sharing intelligence,” he said in an interview. “Why, on this occasion, are you taking unilateral actions and not sharing information?”

He added that, in the past, “the credulity of the world has also been tested” by flawed intelligence passed on by the United States, citing the prewar claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

In an interview, Rizvi first said the American briefing occurred on September 25 or 26; he later said it was early on September 28.

It was the evening of September 28 when an Italian aid worker, Cesare Tavella, was shot while jogging in Dhaka’s diplomatic zone; hours later, a claim of responsibility appeared on a suspected Daesh account on the mobile messaging app Telegram and on two suspected Daesh Twitter accounts, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors radical Islamic propaganda.

Bangladeshi officials said the social media messages were not authentic, as they did after claims of responsibility for the killing of the Japanese citizen and the attack on the Shiite gathering.

Rizvi said that it would be “foolhardy” to discount the possibility that the Daesh was present in Bangladesh, but that he found it unlikely. He said that a competing theory was that domestic opposition forces were seeking to throw Hasina off balance.

“Someone in the rank and file might have said, ‘Let’s stir up some confusion, this government is getting a lot of good press,’” he said. “This government is getting a lot of good press. It was her birthday. It happened the day she made her speech.”

Islam, of the Dhaka police, complained that the warnings came too late to prevent Tavella’s shooting.

“They should have shared with us reliable information before the incident,” he said. “If they shared, maybe we might have avoided the killing.”

A spokeswoman for the US Embassy did not respond directly to the Bangladeshi criticism, or criticize Bangladesh for mishandling the intelligence.

“Foreign governments have shared what information they have had with their Bangladeshi partners, but it is important to recognize terrorist attacks like what we have seen recently in Bangladesh are particularly difficult to counteract,” said the spokeswoman, Nancy VanHorn. “We stand ready to continue working with Bangladesh in the face of this challenge.”

Over a month, the initial panic among expatriates has subsided, and foreigners have begun to reappear in Dhaka’s supermarkets and five-star hotels. But they no longer walk on the streets, ride scooters or take bicycle rickshaws. The garment export industry, a major driver of the economy, has also been affected, with some buyers for Western clothing retailers cancellingcancelling their annual visits, typically used to place orders for winter.

Diplomats here say the threat remains serious. One senior Western diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity for reasons of protocol, said the heightened threat was a “complete game changer” that would permanently affect security conditions for foreigners.

“This is not going to blow over,” the diplomat said. “The genie is not going back in the bottle. It’s not going to un-change.”