4 Islamist militant group arrested over Bangladesh cafe attack

Bangladesh security forces today arrested four members of an Islamist militant group blamed for an attack on a cafe in Dhaka in 2016 which killed 22 people and many of them foreigners.

The detained accused, aged 21 and 28, were members of a faction of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) militant group, known as New JMB and has pledged allegiance to Islamic State and which police believe was involved in organising the cafe attack.

They were detained in a raid on a house on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka.

Police have killed around 50 suspected Islamists in raids since the cafe attack, including the man police said was the attack mastermind, Bangladesh-born Canadian citizen Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury.