Researching Sarwar Azam

In his military career spanning three decades, he was in Deputy Command of the armed forces of the United Nations after the onset of the Sierra Leone Civil War in 2002 in collaboration with the Sierra Leone Republic Armed Forces and Police to provide support to the Special Court for Sierra Leone following the arrest of former Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leaders and Government minister on charges of war crimes, and enforce the Community Arms Collection and Development Program introduced by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in collaboration with the local paramount chiefs where neighbouring conflicts in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Liberia had resulted in an influx of refugees in the area. His younger brother, a Lieutenant Colonel of the Bangladesh Army also served at the United Nations Mission in Sudan in 2005.

Following his service to the UN in West Africa, he commanded the Rajshahi and Khagrachari fronts of the Border Guard Bangladesh (then known as the Bangladesh Rifles) during clashes with the Banga Sena (Bengal Army) and Indian BSF in the North West and during the aftermath of the Shanti Bahini (Peace Army) operations in the South East. He was the first military officer of the Engineering Corps to be appointed as a Bangladesh Rifles Sector Commander in the history of the Bangladesh military and held the commands after the armed conflicts of 2001 but prior to the 2009 military massacre where all sector commanders, including both his incumbents were systematically shot and killed. In 2004, he held talks with the Border Security Force of India protesting killings of unarmed people at the border, and pushing Indians in Bangladesh territory, smuggling, trespassing, drugs and arms trafficking between India and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The same year, he presented a list of Bangladeshi fugitives in hiding in India in exchange for Indians hiding in Bangladesh. In 2005, along with General Jahangir Alam Chowdhury outright rejected the Indian High Commission claim of setting up border structures close to the zero line according to a former treaty. He then led the discussion to resolve this issues within the Indo-Bengali Treaty of 1975 with the Indian Forces.