Bangladeshi police officers take cover as a man lies on the ground near the Holey Artisan Bakery restaurant during an attack by unidentified gunmen in Dhaka’s high-security diplomatic district on July 2, 2016.
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“Mastermind Tamim Chowdhury and his two accomplices have been killed”.
Bangladeshi police have been conducting raids across the country to hunt those behind the attacks. U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry is set to travel to the country Monday to discuss cooperation on a variety of issues, including security.
The suspected mastermind killed in Saturday’s raid was identified as Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, a 30-year-old Canadian citizen born in Bangladesh.
He added: “The operation went on for an hour”.
“We found three bodies inside”.
“The gunfight erupted this morning after police started raiding a building at Naraynganj’s Pikeparha”, Counter-terrorism Unit’s Additional Deputy Commissioner Sanowar Hossain was quoted as saying by the bdnews24.Com.
Dozens of foreigners, activists and members of minority religious groups have been killed by Islamists in Bangladesh over the last three years. “Among them, one of the dead persons looked exactly like the photo of Tamim Chowdhury that we have”, Hoque said.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack on the cafe in Bangladesh that left 20 hostages of varying nationality and two policemen dead.
Officials have said that Chowdhury helped the attackers with safe houses and weaponry and accompanied them as they made their way to the upscale cafe-bakery the evening of July 1.
He said other extremists were “very few” in number and faced imminent arrest.
The three suspects were holed up in a house on the capital’s outskirts, the head of Dhaka police’s counterterrorism unit told Reuters.
Khan said Chowdhury was one of the main suppliers of funds and arms for several recent attacks.
His role in fostering extremism was revealed during the interrogation of Rakibul Hasan, 25, who was arrested in a raid on a militant hideout in July in which nine extremists were killed in Dhaka.
He used to frequent their flat in Kalyanpur and have meetings with them, give motivational speeches and guide them on planning militant attacks, according to the statement of a case filed following the police operation named “Storm 26”, the Daily Star said.
Bangladeshi authorities have rejected the claim, saying worldwide jihadist networks have no presence in the world’s third-largest Muslim-majority nation.
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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government had said however that the attack was the work of a homegrown Islamist group, insisting global jihadist networks have not got a foothold in Bangladesh.
