'Suicide attack' in RAB camp reported in Islamic State's Amaq News

The Islamic State's Amaq News has reported the death of a suicide bomber inside a RAB camp at Dhaka's Ashkona.

Two personnel of the elite police unit were wounded on Friday noon when the unidentified attacker's suicide vest exploded. 

The incident was reported in the Arabic and Bangla versions of Amaq within a few hours after it happened.

It said a "camp for elite troops at the centre of the Bangladeshi capital" was targeted in a 'martyrdom operation' involving an explosive belt.

Inspector General of Police Shahidul Hoque said they were investigating the attack 'planned by militants'.   

He, however, said that he did not know anything about the incident being mentioned in an Islamic State mouthpiece. 

The Middle East-based radical group claimed credit for several of the series of attacks and murders between early 2015 and mid-2016. Hours before the Gulshan café attackers were killed in a rescue operation by Bangladesh Army, Amaq published the photos of the attackers.

But the law-enforcing agencies, as well as the government, said they did not get any proof of any IS or other international extremist group's presence in Bangladesh. The authorities claimed the attacks were being carried out by home-grown militants belonging to some outlawed groups.

The law enforcers are blaming the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh or Neo-JMB for the Gulshan attack in which 22 people, including 17 foreigners, were killed on Jul 1 last year.

IS magazine Dabiq claimed Tamim Chowdhury, the suspected Gulshan attack mastermind later died in a raid, was the chief of the group's Bangladesh chapter.

Police suspect that the two militants arrested in Comilla on Mar 7, two more in a raid on Chittagong's Sitakunda on Wednesday, and four killed in the same area on Thursday belong to Neo-JMB.

When asked whether the RAB suspected any particular militant group responsible for Friday's 'suicide attack', the elite force's spokesperson Mufti Mahmud Khan told the media: "It cannot be confirmed immediately. But the nature of the attack indicates that the man was from an extremist group."

Describing the attack, he said the attacker jumped over the boundary wall of the site designated for building the elite police unit's new headquarters at around 1pm.

"The unidentified intruder tried to escape when RAB personnel challenged him. That is the time when the explosion happened. He died when the bomb attached to his body exploded," he told reporters gathered outside the camp location.

He said two RAB personnel at the camp sustained ‘minor’ injuries. They were admitted to the Combined Military Hospital.

Two letters

An official has said Police Headquarters sent two letters relating to the warning and intelligence gathering to people concerned on Thursday.

The official, requesting anonymity, said the letters were sent to the deputy inspectors general of several ranges, and chiefs of RAB, SB, CID, PBI and other police units.      

One of the letters carried instructions to heighten surveillance and alert level at sensitive places like mosques, temples, churches, and other significant government and non-government establishments.

The other letter asked to send information collected from field level on militancy, the official said.