REUTERS - Police in Bangladesh have arrested five suspected Islamist militants
believed to be plotting to attack New Year celebrations, a counter-terrorism
police
chief said on Wednesday.
The five were believed to be members of a faction of the
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) group, which was blamed for an attack on
a cafe in Dhaka in July in which 22 people were killed, most of them
foreigners.
"They planned to attack on New Year's Eve," Monirul Islam, head
of the counter-terrorism police unit, told a news conference.
Islam declined to elaborate when asked about the militants' target and
how they planned to attack but said police had also seized 60 kg (132 lb) of
explosives, when the five were detained in overnight raids in the capital.
The five were paraded before the media but did not speak to reporters.
Authorities have already banned all outdoor gatherings in Dhaka from dusk
on Dec. 31 to dawn on Jan. 1 on security grounds.
Militant attacks have increased in mostly Muslim Bangladesh, a country of
160 million people, over the past few years with several prominent liberal
writers and members of religious minorities killed.
The JMB has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, which police believe was
involved in organizing the attack on the cafe in Dhaka's diplomatic quarter on
July 1.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for what was the worst militant
attack in Bangladesh.
Police have killed more than 40 suspected militants in raids since the
cafe attack, including the man police said was the mastermind, Bangladesh-born
Canadian citizen Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury.
REUTERS
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