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Bomb supplier of Dhaka's deadly cafe attack identified

Xinhua, September 2, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Bangladesh police said on Friday that they have identified a militant suspect who supplied crude bombs to militants of the July 1 Dhaka cafe attack that left 22 people, including 18 foreigners and two police officers, dead.

Monirul Islam, chief of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told a press briefing that "Sohel Mahfuz made the bombs and supplied to the cafe attackers."

He said they already found important information about Mahfuz who is a member of the newly formed banned militant outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

He also said police were trying to arrest Marzan, one of the masterminds of the Spanish cafe attack, to get more information about Mahfuz.

"If we can arrest Marzan we'll get more information about Mahfuz," he added.

Three militants including Tamim Chowdhury, a key suspected mastermind of last month's deadly cafe attack, were killed during a special operation of the joint forces on Aug. 27.

Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi-Canadian suspected of heading the banned JMB, and a sacked army official were named earlier this month as the key masterminds of the brutal attack.

Nine suspected militants were also killed as Bangladesh law enforcers conducted a similar raid on a hideout of the JMB in Dhaka.

JMB, campaigning for establishment of Islamic rule in Bangladesh, carried out a series of bombing attacks in 63 out of the country's 64 districts, including Dhaka on Aug. 17, 2005, leaving two people dead and 150 others injured.

Hundreds of JMB leaders and activists were rounded up while six top leaders of the group, including Shaikh Abdur Rahman, were hanged in 2007.

Before the wounds of the July 1 deadly terror attack at a Spanish restaurant in Dhaka had even begun to heal, Bangladesh suffered a fresh blow on July 7 when terrorists attacked Muslims' Eid prayers.

At least four people were killed, including two police officers and one of the attackers, after explosions and gunfire took place at the entrance of the country's largest Sholakia Eid prayer venue in Kishoreganj district, some 117 km northeast of Dhaka, on July 7. Endit