COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh: Bangladesh police yesterday arrested a suspected Islamist militant from the border district of Ukhia, near camps where thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar have taken shelter.
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite police tasked with tackling Islamist extremism in the Muslim-majority country, said it detained 30-year-old Sharful Awal for allegedly communicating with international Jihadist groups.
Awal was freed on bail in January after he was charged with anti-terrorism and explosives-related offences in the Chittagong region, RAB local chief Ruhul Amin said in a statement.
But after his release, Awal “communicated with various international militant groups through social media in an effort to establish Khilafat (a caliphate) through so-called Jihad,” Amin said.
Police allege Awal is a member of a new faction of the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a homegrown Islamist group, and was involved in organising local extremists.
The new JMB faction has been blamed for a wave of attacks on foreigners and religious minorities, including the deadly attack on a posh Dhaka cafe last year in which 18 foreigners were shot and hacked to death. — AFP