The militant Islamic State (IS) group has claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on worshippers at a Shia mosque in northern Bangladesh, the United States (US)-based monitoring organisation SITE said Friday.
The attackers entered the mosque in Shibganj, some 125 kilometres north of Dhaka, during evening prayers on Thursday and opened fire on the gathered worshippers before fleeing.
Television footage showed the heavily guarded Shia mosque with broken windows and blood stains on the floor.
Police said the prayer caller had been killed and three worshippers wounded in the shooting, a rare attack on minority Shia Muslims in the mainly Sunni nation.
Detectives say they are questioning two people over the shooting although they had not been formally arrested.
“We have picked up two Sunni locals for interrogation in connection to the shootout,” Shibganj police chief Ahsan Habib told AFP.
The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant activity, said on its website that the IS group had claimed responsibility in a message posted on Twitter.
Bangladeshi authorities have previously said there is no evidence that IS extremists are active in the country.
