Another “mass terror attack” bid was foiled today in Bangladesh, reeling under a number of Islamist assaults, as security forces killed nine members of a homegrown militant group during a fierce gun-battle that erupted after a pre-dawn raid at their hideout here.
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One suspect was arrested following the police operation in the city’s Kalyanpur neighbourhood in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Dhaka Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Masud Ahmed said.
Bangladesh police have conducted several raids on suspected militant hideouts since the deadly attack in Dhaka’s upscale Gulshan neighborhood on July 1 which appeared to target foreigners living in Bangladesh.
Police raided a den of suspected Islamic militants in Bangladesh’s capital Tuesday, killing nine men and seizing explosives, revolvers and black flags, police said. “We’re now sweeping the place”, Dhaka additional police commissioner Sheikh Maruf Hasan who led the raid said in an interview to AFP.
“We suspect the Gulshan cafe attackers and these men were part of the same JMB group”, the inspector general of police (IGP) told reporters at the scene of the incident.
He said six other dead extremists were also identified by police investigators by matching their finger prints with their national identity cards. The security forces successfully neutralized them, and also succeeded in arresting two of their accomplices alive.
Police stormed a building in the district of Kalyanpur on the edge of Dhaka and a firefight ensued with the militants, who shouted “Allahu akbar“, or “God is great”.
Meanwhile, the British Council temporarily closed its offices in Bangladesh Wednesday over safety fears, as a rumour swirled that Islamist extremists would soon target a major market, school or foreign organisation. “The detained person claimed to be an IS members but we think they are of the banned militant outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)”, he added.
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Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the attack and posted gruesome images of the carnage before the military stormed the cafe. He would be taken into police custody immediately after discharge.
