The jihadists who killed 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 AFP, 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.
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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.
{{/usCountry}}Khan said that all of the attackers were well-educated and most came from wealthy families.
{{/usCountry}}“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 Islamist militants, Khan said: “It has become a fashion.”
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