Hostage-takers were from Bangladesh group, not Islamic State: minister

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The attackers who slaughtered 20 hostages at a Dhaka restaurant were members of a homegrown Bangladeshi militant outfit and not followers of the Islamic State group, a senior minister said Sunday.

“They are members of the Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told media, referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade.

“They have no connections with the Islamic State.”

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages and two police officers during an 11-hour siege that ended on Saturday but the government has consistently denied that international ‘jihadist’ groups are operating in Bangladesh.

Police have released the names and photos of six of the attackers who were shot at the end of the siege. A seventh was arrested and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.

Khan said that all of the attackers were well-educated and most came from wealthy families.

“They are all highly educated young men and went to university. No one is from a madrassa,” the minister said.

Asked why they would have become militants, Khan said: “It has become a fashion.”

 

1 COMMENT

  1. So they had no connection with the Islamic State terrorists?…yet they committed the same murdering atrocities against innocent Muslims?…what could these two groups have in common?…oh yes, they were both members of radical Islamic militant groups who believe their religion allows them to kill non believers or people who believe differently…this is the toxic twisted mindset of certain Islamic sects that must be eliminated from the "religion of Peace" by honest Muslims…or they will continue to be targeted by these Terrorists…

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