Militant trio killed in raid

DHAKA: Security forces killed three suspected militants holed up inside a building in north-eastern Bangladesh, police said Saturday, bringing the death toll in this week’s counter terrorism raids to 21.

The trio belonged to a faction of banned outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), said Monirul Islam, the head of counter terrorism unit of Bangladesh’s police.

Several bombs and grenades were detonated by the suspects during the siege at the terrorist hideout in the town of Moulvibazar, he said.

“We wanted to capture the militants alive to face trial, but they put up resistant and eventually got killed in gunfight,” Islam said.

One of the slain is believed to have carried out an attack on March 25, when army commandos were conducting raids in the city of Sylhet. Seven people were killed during the operation, including three police officers.

Seven more suspected JMB members were killed after they detonated suicide vests during a raid on another hideout at Nasirpur, 20 kilometres from Moulvibazar, on Thursday.

The JMB group has been blamed for a series of terrorist attacks in recent years, including last year’s cafe attack in Dhaka that killed 20 civilians, mostly foreigners.

The group was banned after synchronized bomb attacks hit 63 locations in Bangladesh in August 2005.

Army commandos killed four suspected militants holed up in a fivestorey building in the north-eastern city of Sylhet in a four-day long operation that was ended on Monday.

On March 25, six people, including two policemen, were killed and nearly 50 others injured in explosions around 500 metres away from the suspected hideout.

An army officer who was wounded in the attack died in hospital on Friday.