Up to eight people including a child were killed when suspected Islamist militants blew themselves up after being surrounded in a hideout in north-eastern Bangladesh, police say. Th ey described a horrifi c scene at the end of the two day stand-off at Moulvibazar near Sylhet. Police told local media the militants detonated a grenade after failing to escape and to avoid being captured.
Th e dead are believed to include members of a local jihadist group. On Saturday six people – two police offi cers and four civilians – were killed in twin bombings in Sylhet when commandos fl ushed out another group of suspected Islamist militants. So-called Islamic State (IS) claimed on messaging app Telegram that it was behind one of the blasts. In the latest incident on Th ursday, police told Th e Daily Star that the bodies were discovered when a bomb disposal team entered the militants’ den after “disposing of grenades and bombs [which were] lying scattered on the fl oor” of the building.
Th e paper says that the sound of gunfi re and explosions could be constantly heard right up until the time the security forces entered the premises. Th e BBC’s Waliur Rahman in Dhaka says that another suspected hideout in the same Rival militias having been fi ghting for territory in CAR AFP Image north-eastern area has also been surrounded by police since Wednesday.
Meanwhile, law enforcers are also keeping a close watch on a building in the eastern town of Comilla, where a similar raid to fl ush out militants is imminently expected. Th e escalation in violence comes at a time when many in Bangladesh thought security forces had managed to curb Islamist militancy, following the deadly siege on a cafe in Dhaka last year.
Recent suicide attacks on security camps and checkpoints have surprised many. Bangladeshi police maintain that an off shoot of the banned Islamist outfi t Jamiatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) is responsible for many of these attacks, despite claims to the contrary by IS and al-Qaeda
