Bangladesh police kill 3 in gunfight

Canadian among suspected militants who died in shootout

DHAKA, Bangladesh — Police in Bangladesh killed three suspected militants in a shootout Saturday morning, including the Canadian citizen identified as a key organizer of the deadly terrorist attack on a Dhaka cafe last month.

Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, 30, was among those killed during an exchange of gunfire in the Narayanganj neighborhood near the capital of Dhaka, according to Monirul Islam, chief of the counterterrorism unit.

Islam said police received a tip that a small group of militants had been sheltered in a residential building in the neighborhood and that they cordoned off the area just after midnight, with the two sides exchanging gunfire.

The suspects were killed by special operations team about 10 a.m., he said. The police found grenades, pistols and AK-22 assault rifles at the apartment.

Chowdhury, 30, was a naturalized Canadian citizen who graduated from the University of Windsor in 2011, officials said. He returned to Bangladesh in late 2013 from the United Arab Emirates.

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. Ultimately, militants killed at least 22 people, including several foreigners, and two police officers in the overnight siege.

Islam said Chowdhury’s arrest was a major milestone because he was responsible for radicalizing the youths involved in the cafe attack as well as others who attacked worshipers July 7 at an Eid celebration.

“This is a significant progress for our counterterrorism drive because Tamim was responsible for collecting finances and later distributing them, recruiting and radicalizing members of elite families,” Islam said.

Authorities said Chowdhury is a leader of Jamaatul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, a new branch of the domestic terrorism outfit that produced the cafe attackers and is affiliated with the Islamic State.

Since 2013, authorities say, more than 50 terrorist attacks have been carried out by extremists in Bangladesh. Those include killings of secular bloggers and publishers by machete-wielding assailants as well as the slayings of several foreigners, gay rights activists and members of minority religious groups.