Islamic State claims responsibility for attack on Shiite mosque in Bangladesh

Gunmen stormed a Shia mosque and opened fire on praying worshipers, killing one man and wounding three others in northwestern Bangladesh, police said.

The so-called Islamic State group later claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence group, which monitors jihadist activities online.

A statement posted on IS-affiliated Twitter accounts from Islamic State – Bangladesh said that the mosque was hit by a barrage of shots fired from machine guns.

On Wednesday, police said they had killed Al Bani, who headed the military wing of JMB, and that he died in an exchange of fire as they tried to arrest him.

“The assailants fled the scene immediately but we have launched the investigations”, Bogra’s police chief M Asaduzzaman told PTI over phone.

The assaults, claimed by radical Islamist groups, raised worries that religious extremism is taking hold in the average nation and have alarmed the worldwide community. No group said it carried out the attack.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for these attacks.

Last month, a grenade attack on Shias in Old Dhaka killed two people and injured over 100 others.

“We feared last month’s attack might be repeated and our fears have come true”.

Later it continued its violent campaign by attacking and killing judges and police, and threatening journalists and women without veils.

On October 24, a teenage boy was killed and more than 100 people were injured when a bomb blast struck an annual rally of thousands of Shia Muslims in Dhaka.

Security had already been increased across the country after two top opposition leaders were hanged on Sunday following their conviction for war crimes committed during the 1971 independence conflict against Pakistan.

About 96 percent of Bangladesh’s 149 million Muslims are Sunni, and the rest are Shi’ites.