ISIS claims deadly attack on Shiite mosque in northern Bangladesh

US-based monitoring organisation SITE reported the group, which has claimed responsibility for a number of recent attacks in Bangladesh, said it had targeted the Shia worshippers.

Two suspects arrested after gunmen storm mosque and open fire on praying worshippers, killing one and wounding three.

The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accuses domestic militant groups along with main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami Party of terrorist attacks in the South Asian country.

Bangladesh has been rocked this year by a series of deadly attacks claimed by radical Islamist groups, raising concerns about growing extremism in the mostly Sunni Muslim nation.

The gunmen fled the scene crossing a wall after locking the mosque’s main gate from inside apparently to prevent people in the neighbourhood to come to the rescue of the victims, sources said. “Four with gunshot injuries were immediately taken to a local hospital where one – the muezzin – died later”, Arifur Rahman Mondal, Additional Superintendent of police of Bogra, said to VOA by telephone. Mohammed Asaduzzaman, Bogra district police chief, reportedly said that the man who was killed was a mosque official in his 70s. A previously unknown group, Ansar Bangla 7, which intelligence officials believe is part of the banned Ansarullah Bangla Team, claims responsibility.

The IS, in its English language magazine “Dabiq”, has threatened more attacks in Bangladesh, saying its followers had united behind “a new leader”.

The attack occurred on Thursday.

Regardless, Thursday’s mosque attack is the latest example in which ISIS has boasted about carrying out violence in Bangladesh.

Due to the deteriorating security situation for non-Muslims, Australia has asked volunteers to pull back from working in Bangladesh, as the country continues to be bombarded by jihadi terror.

Later it continued its violent campaign by attacking and killing judges and police, also threatened journalists and women for not wearing veils. The bombs, lobbed into the crowd as people were gathering for an early morning procession through the capital, killed a teenage boy and wounded more than 100 people.