According to the local media, the police have held one person on suspicion of the strike at Shlokia prayer grounds where over 30,000 Muslims had gathered for Eid prayers.
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A few hours before Hasina urged the masses, Bangladesh was on Thursday the target of another terror attack aimed at a police contingent guarding an Eid congregation at the Sholakia Ground in Kishoreganj district during prayers.
On Thursday, Bangladesh’s information minister Hasanul Haq Inu, told local reporters said that Thursday’s attack was “political” and did not have an “Islamist agenda” behind it. They are in a critical condition and have been shifted to a military hospital in Dhaka.
The Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for Friday’s terror attack on the Hole Artisan Cafe in Dhaka, on Wednesday issued a new video warning the Bangladesh government of more attacks in the country and across the world until Shariah law is established globally. “They will go straight to hell”, he told AFP over phone.
Bangladeshi authorities are cracking down on social media sites that allow the proliferation of radical Islamist material after one of the deadliest extremist attacks in the country’s history last week.
Both ISIS and al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) have been linked to a spate of attacks in Bangladesh over the past 18 months, often involving jihadists using machetes against various individuals, including writers, bloggers, academics, activists, liberals, atheists, foreigners, gays, and religious minorities.
“They attacked the police out of nowhere”, said Hossain, who added that some of the attackers had been carrying guns and bladed weapons.
A day before the event, police said they had put strict security measures in place, including uniformed and plain clothes officers as well as closed circuit security cameras.
Is violent extremism on the rise in Bangladesh?
The team, which includes National Security Guard (NSG) experts in post-blast analysis and counter-terror operations, will study the 1 July incident where terrorists laid siege at a bakery in Dhaka and killed 22 besides Thursday’s bombings in Kishoreganj district in Bangladesh, an official said.
Obama, in a condolence letter to Abe, wrote: “I join you in condemning this horrific attack that claimed so many innocent lives”.
The State Department also said that “terrorist threat in the Muslim-majority country is real and credible”.
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“We will face them with all our might”. “They do not have a religion”. Critics say that the government has used the arrest sweeps as an excuse to detail Hasina’s political opponents.
