Bangladesh police kill 3, including Canadian suspect in Dhaka attack

Amarasingam said in an email that there isn’t much evidence available about Chowdhury’s role in the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, but he seemed to be involved in expanding the group’s network.

The police chief said security officials raided the house acting on a tip that Chowdhury, along with other suspects, was hiding in the building.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina praised police and intelligence agencies for the operation which killed Tamim Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi-Canadian believed to have planned the attack. “He is the Gulshan attack mastermind and the leader of JMB (Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh)”, senior police officer Sanwar Hossain told AFP.

The government says the July 1 attack – and another on July 26 in which police killed nine militants believed to be plotting a similar assault – were the work of domestic militants. “So we will have to wait until it’s confirmed”, he said.

Sohel Mahmud, an assistant professor of Forensic Department of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said the three succumbed to their injuries as they sustained bullet wounds in their heads.

Bangladeshi police killed one of the “suspected masterminds” of the July terror attack in Dhaka after an hour-long battle, authorities said. The militants in last month’s attack were well-prepared and heavily armed with guns, bombs and large knives or swords, which police said were used to torture some hostages or mutilate their bodies once dead. Dozens of foreigners, activists and members of minority religious groups have been killed by Islamists in Bangladesh over the last three years.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the restaurant attack, but authorities have denied the claim.

Tamim’s name came up on the list of 10 missing people released by police after it emerged that the cafe killers and Sholakia attackers had been reported missing by their families.

The attack on Gulshan cafe in a posh neighbourhood of the Bangladeshi capital on July 1 had resulted in the death of 22 people including 16 foreigners and an Indian.

Other Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh militants are “very few” in number and face imminent arrest, he added.

Police on August 2 announced a two million taka (S$34,000) reward for information leading to the arrest of Chowdhury, who disappeared after allegedly masterminding the cafe attack.

Bangladeshi authorities have rejected the claim, saying global jihadist networks have no presence in the world’s third largest Muslim majority nation.