Like Nibras Islam, one of the five young and affluent cafe attackers who was killed after a 12-hour siege on July 2, Hossain had also attended the Kuala Lumpur campus of Australia’s prestigious Monash University, the head of the Dhaka police counterterrorism unit told reporters.
Advertisement
Police in Bangladesh say they killed three suspected terrorists on Saturday, including the alleged mastermind of the attack on a Dhaka cafe that left 20 dead last month.
Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury, reporting from Dhaka, said it will likely require relatives to positively identify the body or DNA testing to confirm that the person killed was Tamim Chowdhury, as the police have reported.
The militants were part of the banned group Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, or JMB, according to police officials in the country.
A raid led by the Counter-terrorism Unit was conducted on Saturday at a house in Narayanganj, 30 km south of Bangladesh capital Dhaka.
He had lived in Ontario with his family and completed a chemistry degree at the University of Windsor but left Canada in 2013 in a suspected attempt to travel to Syria.
Bangladeshi authorities have said Chowdhury planned the July 1 assault on the Holey Artisan Bakery, a restaurant popular with expatriates and middle-class Bangladeshis. Four people died in that attack, including two police officers.
The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, though Bangladesh’s government has repeatedly denied that the organization has a presence in the country.
Worldwide media reports, citing several Islamic State publications, have described him as the coordinator of Middle East-based group’s Bangladesh operations.
“We can see three dead bodies here”, senior police officer Sanwar Hossain was quoted in a report by AFP.
Police said they found guns, ammunition and meat cleavers in the apartment where the men were holed up.
The suspects were killed by special operations team about 10 a.m., he said.
After storming the building Saturday, a SWAT team made the final push and fatally shot the suspects after they failed to surrender. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the police operation would uphold confidence and the image of her country, and came ahead of U.S. secretary of state John Kerry’s visit to Dhaka on Monday.
“I don’t think he will be easily replaced”.
Tahmid Hasib Khan’s family has maintained the 22-year-old’s innocence ever since the July 1 attack.
As we reported last month, gunmen stormed into the Holey Artisan Bakery café on a busy Friday night and took a group hostage, including foreigners.
Advertisement
“This has been an extremely hard time for our family as he has now been away from us for 54 days”, a post to the Facebook page Free Hasnat Karim said.
