A new militant outfit styled Neo-JMB, modelled after the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) aims to kill foreigners in Bangladesh, intelligence agencies in Dhaka have found.
The seven militants who were killed during a special operation in Gazipur on Saturday had been newly recruited to launch another massive attack on foreigners.
According to intelligence officials involved in combating the deadly militants, the Neo-JMB only targets foreigners.
Inspired by the Gulshan attack, Neo-JMB leaders have decided to target only foreigners, believing that they could thus destabilise the government and tarnish its image.
Speaking about the slain Dhaka divisional commander of JMB, Faridul Islam Akash, additional deputy commissioner of the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit (CTTC) of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), Sanowar Hossain, said Akash was a close confidante of slain JMB co-ordinator Tamim Chowdhury.
Tamim had assigned Akash the job of carrying out the attack on the Sholakia Eid ground in Kishoreganj.
In the absence of Tamim Chowdhury, Akash had tried to reorganise the outfit and, as part of his plan, recruited several militants, including the six suicide attackers.
Akash was using the rented houses for suicide attackers. He had motivated the newly recruited JMB members, providing them with the necessary military training.
About the identities of the six other militants killed in the same operation, a senior CTTC officer said, “We are getting feedback from our sources to properly identify the bodies.”
Besides manually checking their identities, the fingerprints of the bodies had been sent to the election commission (EC), said additional deputy commissioner (ADC) Sanowar Hossain.
However, an ADC of the CTTC said among the six other militants, one was identified as Ibrahim, son of Azim Uddin, an employee of a construction company and a
resident of the Old Dhaka.
After he left his house on the morning of August 8 this year, his father lodged a
general diary.
“Among others, we suspect that one may be Sanaullah from Gaibandha. Another militant has been identified as a mechanic. We have information that among the slain militants, there may be two brothers who were missing from the city’s Sheorapara area,” the ADC added.
Asked why they were hiding in areas close to Dhaka city, Sanowar Hossain said the militants had taken shelter in those areas to avoid getting caught at police check-posts when they travelled to the target spots from their secret hideouts.
“Another reason for choosing those shelters is that the house-owners do not usually take national identity cards or any identity documents from their tenants, which are mandatory in areas under the DMP,” he added.
During their stay in their hideouts, the militants also did not mix with local people, Hossain said.
Meanwhile, a case has been filed with Joydebpur police station in connection with the killing of nine militants in two separate raids in Gazipur.
Khandaker Rezaul Hasan, in-charge of the police station, filed the case under the Arms Act on Sunday
morning.
In a major success for the anti-militancy drive, security forces killed the divisional commander of the banned outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), its chief financier and 10 other militants in four operations in Gazipur, Tangail and Ashulia districts on Saturday morning.
The raids on the four militant hideouts were carried out jointly by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the CTTC of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police and the police from Gazipur and Tangail districts.