Police prepare to storm 'militant den' inside Sylhet building

SWAT and bomb-disposal units have reached the location in Sylhet where police are surrounding a building with suspected militants.

Counter-terror police will be 'forced to storm' the five-storey building at Shibbari of South Surma, cordoned off since early Friday, if the suspects refuse to surrender. 
 
A grenade was hurled towards a team of CT detectives from Dhaka who tried to approach the building at 3am, said Rokonuddin, additional commissioner of Sylhet Metropolitan Police.  

Suspected militants were reportedly holed up inside one of the units on the building's ground floor. People in nearby houses have been moved to safety, police said.

There were 30 flats inside the building, said its owner Ustar Ali.

Flat no-4 on the lower storey was rented by a couple, Kausar Ali and Morjina Begum, three months ago, he said. Kausar claimed he was an audit official for Pran Foods Ltd.

'Send in the SWAT!' - militant suspect tells police surrounding Sylhet building  

"All the rules were followed in the process. I have copies of both their national IDs. They have been paying rent regularly."

Local residents said they have heard sounds of explosions and gunfire.

Police were seen positioned around the building during a visit to the location in the morning.

They were also in alert positions in nearby rooftops. The two roads that lead to the building have been sealed off.

Police have been using loudspeakers to instruct the trapped residents to close their doors, windows and remain inside the building.

The 'hideout' in Shibbari was found based on information dug out in police raids in two hideouts at Chittagong's Sitakunda, said a police official.

Militant activities, curbed in back-to-back anti-terror operations that followed the Gulshan and Sholakia terror attacks, seem to be re-emerging since March this year.

Mar 6: Assailants attempt to snatch away death-row convict and Harkatul Jihad leader Mufti Hannan and his associates from a prison van taking them to Kashimpur Jail after a court session.

Mar 7: Two suspected members of the newly-revived Jama'atul Islam Mujahideen (JMB) attack police with bombs during a routine search on a bus at Comilla. They are caught and one of them is taken along in police raid on a 'militant den' at Mirsarai where weapons, bombs were being stored.  

Mar 15: A militant couple is arrested with explosives from a house at Sitakunda's Amirabad. A house in neighbouring ward Premtala is raided based on their confessions.

Mar 16: After cordoning off the building for 19 hours, police begin 'Operation Assault Sixteen'. Four suspects are killed in suicide blast and gunfire. A child's dead body, torn up in a blast, is also found.

Mar 17: A 'suicide bomber' climbs over the wall enclosing the construction site for the Rapid Action Battalion's (RAB) new headquarters in Dhaka's Ashkona. He dies in a blast while being pursued by security personnel.     

Mar 18: RAB personnel shoot dead a man who drove a motorcycle into a check post at Khilgaon's 'Sheikher Jaiga' at 4am. Explosives were found strapped to his body, officials said.

Mar 20: Two houses at Chittagong's Akbar Shah area are raided but nothing suspicious is found. 

Police claim the suspects arrested in Comilla, Chittagong and Dhaka in the current month are members of the revived or 'neo-JMB'. 

The JMB had surfaced with simultaneous bombings in 63 of Bangladesh's 64 districts on Aug 27, 2005.

The new recruits of this group were responsible for terror attack during the last two years including the deadly siege of Gulshan's Holey Artisan Bakery where 20 including 17 foreigners were killed, according to counter-terror detectives.  

The top leader of the old JMB Shaykh Abdur Rahman was arrested along with his family from house, 'Surjadighal Barhi', at Sylhet's East Shaplabagh on Mar 2, 2006.

There has not been any terror attack or raids in the northern district since then.