Nine suspected Islamist extremists were killed by the Bangladesh police when they stormed a hideout for militants in Dhaka early on Tuesday morning. “He said they are IS members”, the police official told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding the 25-year-old was a cook and hailed from the northern district of Bogra, home to two of the five cafe attackers.
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ISIS took responsibility for the attack this group was trying to emulate, so even when they’re not involved, they are inspiring copycat killers.
The militants, who shouted “Allahu akbar” or “God is greatest” as they battled police, were believed to be members of the banned group, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State.
The attack in the Dhaka cafe was one of the worst militant assaults in the country.
“His name is Hasan”. AIR correspondent reports Operation “Storm 26” comes hardly a month after “Operation Thunderbolt” on July 1st in which 22 people including 17 foreigners and 2 policemen were killed and 5 terrorists were neutralised.
But Bangladeshi authorities have rejected the IS link, saying worldwide jihadist networks have no presence in the world’s third largest Muslim-majority nation.
But IGP Hoque said: “We have not found any link with IS”.
Locals said they first heard gunshots and blasts around 1 am.
Is extremism on the rise in Bangladesh?
On Tuesday, police raided a building in a Dhaka suburb and killed nine militants, who police said were from the same domestic group as the cafe attackers, and who had been plotting their own similar attack.
Police said all the dead wore black clothes and that they had found a black flag as well.
Besides, Raihan was also wanted for a case of the Detective Branch of police following the killing of a constable in the attack on a patrol team of Ashulia industrial police in Baroipara in Savar in 2015. They have also captured one of them alive.
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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.
