Dhaka Cafe Attack Mastermind Killed In Bangladesh

Nurul Islam Marzan, the Neo-Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh leader, one of the key figures behind the Gulshan café attack, has been killed in a gunfight with the police in the Bangladesh capital, a senior police officer in Dhaka said on Friday (6 January).

The incident took place at Mohammadpur in Dhaka around 3 am in Beribadh area, Dhaka Metropolitan Police's counter-terror unit chief Monirul Islam informed the media. Marzan was killed alongside an accomplice, the police added.

Additional deputy commissioner Yusuf Ali said that Marzan, who was aged around 30, was “one of the masterminds” of the siege at the upmarket Holey Artisan Bakery on July 1 last year in which 18 foreign hostages were shot or hacked to death.

The Islamic State had claimed responsibility for the cafe attack. But Bangladesh police rejected the claim, instead blaming a new offshoot of the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a homegrown militant outfit founded in 1998, for the attack.

With inputs from IANS