Dhaka : Bangladesh on Sunday blamed “homegrown” Islamist terrorists and Pakistan’s spy agency ISI for the country’s worst terror attack in which 20 hostages were hacked to death, ruling out the role of the Islamic State, as the shocked nation began observing two days of national mourning.
“Let me clear it again, there are no ISIS or al-Qaeda presence or existence in Bangladesh…The hostage-takers were all home-grown terrorists not members of ISIS or any other international Islamist outfits,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told PTI.
“We know them (hostage-takers) along with their ancestors, they all grew here in Bangladesh…They belong to homegrown outfits like JMB (Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh),” he said.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages, mostly foreigners, and two police officers during the 12-hour siege that ended yesterday after the army stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery popular with expats in the diplomatic zone here, killing six attackers and capturing one alive.
Hossain Toufique Imam, the political advisor to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said that the way in which the hostages were killed with machetes suggests the role of a local terrorist group, the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen.
Source : Zee News
