Weakened by deaths and arrests New Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh is planning to recruit more suicide cadres

Dhaka, September 18 (NIA): Tanvir Qadri, the  New Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (NJMB)  militant who committed suicide earlier in September while being corned by the Security Forces in Azimpur, was planning to form a new suicide squad to carry out major terror attacks, Dhaka Tribune has reported, quoting investigators.

He had to plan for such a specialized cell because of the death of 14 militants in two major incidents – the Gulshan attack and the police raid in Kalyanpur. All of these men were members of the suicide squad, the paper has learnt.

Five  suicide squad members had been arrested in Dhaka in the last one month.

With the deaths and arrests ,NJMB now has a crisis of members. Besides setting up new cells, Tanvir Qadri alias Abdul Karim, an ex-banker, was also planning to rob banks.

After death of New JMB coordinator Tamim Chowdhury on September 3, Tanvir Qadri alias Abdul Karim, the interim coordinator, was planning a major attack with a suicide squad who got training from him at a Dhaka dormitory.

Karim had begun carrying out targeted killings before going for a major attack. The attempted killing of a Hindu priest in Narsingdi was their first such crime since the Gulshan attack, said officials of Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) Unit and Detective Branch (DB).

“The group was planning targeted killings to reinvigorate its activities. They were planning to go for major attacks if the small attacks were carried out successfully,” a top official said.

For targeted killings, they were planning to attack people of other religions.

Maj Zahidul, who was killed during the police raid in Mirpur, was in charge of training suicide squad members, the official said

“Police have already received information on a training camp for suicide squads in Dhaka. We are trying to locate the camp,” he said.

The CT Unit official said that police had recovered four laptops, a pen drive and a diary of Maj Zahid from the Azimpur den. All these contained important information about the group’s plans.

Wives Also Involved

In addition, the three female militants, all wives of major leaders of the group, who were arrested during the Azimpur raid have also provided important clues, the official said.

Police arrested five NJMB members from Dhaka city, but four of them managed to escape.

“All nine members came to Dhaka from the northern region. We managed to arrest five of them, but another four – Nannu, Sajib, Imran and Gypsy, fled from the scene. All of them were in touch with Karim,” the investigators said.