Bangladesh cafe attack: Four members of Islamist militant group arrested

The July attack in Dhaka’s diplomatic quarter was claimed by the Islamic State and was the worst militant attack in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh security forces on Wednesday arrested four members of an Islamist militant group blamed for an attack on a cafe in Dhaka in 2016 which killed 22 people, most of them foreigners.

Army soldiers take their positions near the Holey Artisan restaurant after Islamist militants attacked a cafe in Dhaka, Bangladesh on July 2, 2016. (Reuters photo)

The July attack in Dhaka’s diplomatic quarter was claimed by the Islamic State and was the worst militant attack in Bangladesh, which has been hit by a spate of killings of liberals and members of religious minorities in the past few years.

Read: Bangladesh arrests ‘mastermind’ behind Dhaka cafe attack in July that killed 22

The four arrested, aged 21 and 28, were members of a faction of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) militant group, known as New JMB, which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State and which police believe was involved in organising the cafe attack.

“One of them was the IT head of the group,” Mufti Mahmud Khan, spokesman of the police-led Rapid Action Battalion, which is involved in counter-terrorism efforts.

Police have killed around 50 suspected Islamists in raids since the cafe attack, including the man police said was the attack mastermind, Bangladesh-born Canadian citizen Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury.