1st LD Writethru: Four killed in police raid on militants' hideout in western Bangladesh

Four bodies suspected to be militants were found after Bangladesh police stormed a hideout of the Neo-JMB members holed up in the country's western Chapainawabganj district Thursday night.

M Khurshid Hossain, a senior police official, declared the "Operation Eagle Hunt" to wipe out the militant hideout was over.

"The bodies of four men were found after the law enforcers managed to enter the Neo-JMB hideout," he told reporters.

The senior police officer said the militants were most likely killed in "suicide explosions."

Security forces had surrounded the house since early Wednesday.

On Thursday afternoon law enforcers managed to bring an injured woman and a child out of the militant den.

Earlier in the day, a huge blast and sporadic gunshots were heard from the house.

Law enforcers are primarily sure that the slain militants are mid-level leaders of "Neo JMB."

The Neo-JMB, an offshoot of the banned militant outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, was blamed for the deadly July 1, 2016 attack on a Spanish cafe in Dhaka, which killed 22 people, mostly foreigners.

Last month Bangladeshi police conducted series of large-scale operations against militants, in which at least 17 suspected militants were killed.

Six people, including two police officers, were killed last month in two explosions which ripped through a crowd near a militant hideout in northeastern Bangladesh. Endit