Dhaka: Attackers Made No Demands, ISIS Not Involved Says Home Min
The Bangladesh Minister said ISIS did not carry out the attack, but an organisation that’s been banned for a decade.
A senior Bangladeshi minister has said that the gunmen who killed 20 people in a Dhaka restaurant were from a homegrown militant outfit and had no connections with ISIS.
“They are members of the Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told news agency AFP. He also said they had not made any demands and one of the persons taken alive by police was only a suspect.
The Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh has been banned in the country for more than a decade.
ISIS, however, had claimed responsibility for the attack and through its media media arm Amaq released five pictures of men who they claim attacked the restaurant. The Home Minster said that three of the six gunmen killed were under 22 years of age.
A police source was quoted as saying by the Dhaka Tribune that all the attackers were Bangladeshi nationals aged between 20 and 28.
Police said the attackers were well-educated and most came from rich families.
The government has consistently ruled out the presence of the dreaded terror group in the Muslim-majority nation though experts have been maintaining that series of brutal attacks on minorities and secular activists had the hallmarks of ISIS group.
Meanwhile, police have released the photos of the six gunmen killed during the raid by commandos. A seventh was arrested and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.
Police chief AKM Shahidul Hoque said five of the dead gunmen were listed as militants and police had been looking for them.
Below are three pictures of the men, which the group posted via Amaq news agency.
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