Bangladesh police say 9 militants killed in raid in Dhaka

The hour-long raid was launched at 5:51 AM (local time) at Jahaz building in Kalyanpur area by special police units.

Police in Bangladesh’s capital raided a five-story building Tuesday that was used as a den by suspected Islamic militants, killing nine of them, the country’s police chief said.

Bangladesh is a majority Muslim country and in the previous year radical Islamist sections of society have carried out deadly attacks against the country’s minorities and press, including professors, Hindus, Christians and secular bloggers.

After police raided the building on Tuesday, the suspects attempted to flee by shooting their way out, but police shot them as they emerged, Hoque said. “They are members of a local group, JMB, I think”, he said.

Some militants were also arrested in the raid with explosives and grenades, Xinhua news agency reported.

“All of them belong to a militant group but still it is not clear which group they are”, an unnamed police official told Reuters.

On July 1, gunmen killed 20 hostages, mostly foreign nationals, at an upscale eatery Holey Aritisan Bakery in the capital’s diplomatic zone in a 12-hour siege.

One wounded militant was captured, he said.

Hoque said police found no evidence of their ISIS link but security analysts earlier said JMB was ideologically inclined to the Syria-based outfit which claimed the responsibility of the July 1 attack.

He told doctors that he along with ten others live in the fourth floor of the building from where he jumped off sensing police presence.

But acting on intelligence inputs and a tip-off, police had tracked down their hideout out and executed the joint-forces specialized operation and killed the nine militants.