IS planning attack in Bangladesh, West Bengal

International Desk: Indicating that Islamic State (IS) could be planning an attack in Bangladesh or West Bengal, a pro-IS Telegram channel has released a poster in Bengali saying “Coming Soon”.

Sources in an intelligence agency confirmed that such a poster was in circulation and that it was being looked into.

The poster, released on Thursday night, reads “Shighroi Aschhe (coming soon), Inshallah.” and has the logo of a group called al Mursalat.

Agencies have taken the poster seriously as the IS has just carried out deadly serial blasts in Sri Lanka through local outfit Tawheed Jamaat.

Bangladesh already has a strong Islamic State presence with a section of local terrorist organisation named Jamatul Mujahideen (New-JMB) being affiliated to ISIS Central.

However, JMB operatives have also been known to frequent Kolkata and others parts of West Bengal and neighbouring states for recruitment and establishing hideouts.

In February this year, a JMB operative, Ariful Islam, was arrested from the Babughat area in Kolkata. He was one of the accomplices in the Bodh Gaya blast, which took place in 2018.

Earlier, JMB had set up a module in Assam as well and the arrested operatives had disclosed that the outfit was using Chirang area of Lower Assam district as a training centre, an officer recalled.

Last July, US agency FBI had interrogated ISIS-JMB terrorist Mohammed Musiruddin a.k.a Musa arrested by the West Bengal CID from a train at Burdwan station.

Musiruddin, who had been hiding for a long time in Tamil Nadu's Tirupur district, had revealed his links with Amjad Sheikh, a key member of the JMB, arrested in 2014 in connection with the Khagragarh twin blast case.

Three years ago, local JMB sleeper cells had put up posters in several districts of West Bengal asking the youth to join the terrorist organisation.

Source: Times of India


risingbd/Dhaka/April 27, 2019/AI