Police in Bangladesh raided a militant hideout on Thursday sparking a
clash in which five suspected militants and a fire fighter were killed in
blasts that the militants set off,
police said.
Bangladeshi security forces have been hunting for militants, especially
members of a group that has pledged allegiance to Islamic State, since an
attack on a cafe in the capital, Dhaka, last July in which 22 people were
killed, most of them foreigners.
Police and army commandos have killed more than 70 suspected militants
and arrested hundreds since then.
In the latest incident, police raided the hideout, about 200 miles (120
km) west of Dhaka, after a tip-off.
The militants threw grenades, wounding two officers, the area's police
station chief, Hipjur Alam Munsi, told Reuters.
The militants, suspected members of a faction of the Islamic-State-linked
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh group, set off explosives, killing themselves
and the fire fighter, as police closed in, Munsi said.
Al Qaeda and Islamic State have claimed responsibility for some of other
attacks in Bangladesh over the past few years but the government has denied the
presence of such groups in the Muslim-majority country of 160 million, blaming
domestic militants instead.
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