Bangladesh police kill nine Islamists, foil mass attack
Police say the men belonged to a group blamed for the Dhaka cafe attack
Bangladeshi police yesterday killed nine suspected Islamist extremists believed to be planning another mass attack following a deadly cafe assault this month, the country’s police chief said.
Police who stormed their hideout said the men belonged to a Bangladeshi group blamed for the Dhaka cafe attack in which 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, were killed.
“From police intelligence sources, we learnt that they were planning to carry out a major incident. We conducted the operation to foil any such incident,” national police chief A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque told reporters.
“They were wearing the same extremist dress as worn in the Gulshan attack,” he said, referring to the upscale neighbourhood where the cafe was located.
One other suspected extremist was shot at and arrested during the raid in the capital’s Kalyanpur neighbourhood, according to police.
Hoque said all 10 were suspected members of the homegrown extremist group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which local authorities blamed for the Dhaka cafe attack.
But a police official said one wounded survivor of the raid had said all of those inside the hideout were followers of Daesh.
“His name is Hasan. He said they are Daesh members,” the police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He said the 25-year-old was a cook and came from the northern district of Bogra, home to two of the five cafe attackers.
Daesh claimed responsibility for the July 1 attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan in which two policemen and 20 hostages were killed, among them nine Italians and seven Japanese nationals.
No link
Gruesome images of the carnage were posted on media sites which have links to Daesh before the military stormed the cafe.
But Bangladeshi authorities have rejected the Daesh link, saying international militant networks have no presence in the world’s third largest Muslim-majority nation.
Hoque said the nine killed in yesterday’s operation had no connection with the Daesh, even though they were wearing the group’s signature black robes and Islamic turbans.
“We have not found any link with Daesh. They are all local Bangladeshi militants,” he said.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina thanked police for a “very successful operation” and said their swift action had saved the country from a “terrible situation”.
“We don’t want Bangladesh to become a sanctuary for the terrorist activities,” she said, adding her government would eliminate extremism at all costs.
Police said they had cordoned off a five-storey apartment building in Dhaka after suspects threw a small bomb at officers.
A gunfight ensued during which cries of “Allahu akbar” (“God is Greatest”) could be heard through the night as hundreds of heavily armed police and elite security forces sealed off the area.