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Bangladesh

25 injured in Bangladesh clash

2019-02-14

[Dawn] Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at hundreds of religious hardliners who attacked Ahmadis in northern Bangladesh on Tuesday, leaving 25 people injured. The festivities erupted after days of tensions over a planned convention of the Ahmadi community in the town of Ahmadnagar. The hardliners demanded the event be cancelled. There are an estimated 100,000 Ahmadis in Bangladesh. Police said several groups have been holding protests against the Ahmadis’ convention, scheduled to start in just over a week. "Some 700-800 men wielding sticks and batons marched towards Ahmadnagar and clashed with the Ahmadis," a police official said. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to "maintain law and order", he said, adding that 20 police and five Ahmadis were maimed. The front man for Ahmadi community said seven of its members were maimed, three critically. The last few decades have seen a number of attacks targeting Ahmadis in Bangladesh. The so-called Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group grabbed credit for the attack, but the authorities blamed a homegrown Death Eater group, Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh, which is accused of killing scores of Hindus, Christians, Sufis and Shias.

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Bangladesh

Suspected militant held near Rohingya camps in Bangladesh

2018-01-02

[DAWN] Bangladesh police on Sunday placed in durance vile Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! a suspected bully boy from the border district of Ukhia, near camps where thousands of Rohingya Moslems fleeing a military crackdown in Myanmar have taken shelter. The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite police tasked with tackling extremism in the 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 bully boy 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 group, and was involved in organising local bully boys. 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. But the RAB’s Amin said authorities have not found any connections so far between Awal and Rohingya refugees.

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Bangladesh

Biman Bangladesh pilot held over aircraft sabotage plot

2017-11-01

[Dhaka Tribune] Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has tossed in the clink Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! four suspected Death Eaters, including a pilot of Biman Bangladesh for planning sabotage using aircraft. The four members of banned Death Eater outfit Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) were arrested on Tuesday. Of the arrestee, the Biman officer was identified as Sabbir. He is also first officer of the national flag carrier. RAB Legal and Media Wing Mufti Mahmud Khan said they were arrested for planning a Death Eater attack by using an aircraft. He said the detainees are close associates of Death Eater Abdullah, who went kaboom! at a den in Mirpur. Details regarding the matter will be disclosed in a press briefing later in the day. On September 6, seven people, including Abdullah, died in a suicide kaboom at a Death Eater hideout at Darus Salam in Mirpur. An Nahar adds: Sabbir Emam, a pilot with state-run Biman Bangladesh Airlines, was detained in Dhaka with three others suspected of links to a bully boy group blamed for a cafe siege last year that left 22 people dead, including 18 foreigners. The Rapid Action Battalion police unit said Sabbir plotted with senior faceless myrmidons from Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh to crash a plane into the homes of politicians or to take passengers hostage. Sabbir allegedly had ties to senior turbans including Sarwar Jahan, the head of a new JMB faction, before he was killed in a police raid. Police say Sabbir and Sarwar plotted a plane attack with another man, Abdullah, who was killed in a raid in September along with six others, including his wife and children, in an apartment building in Dhaka. The building was owned by Sabbir's father, who was questioned by police.

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Bangladesh

Two Islamist Extremists Killed in Bangladesh Raid

2017-05-08

[An Nahar] A suspected Islamist holy warrior went kaboom! and another was rubbed out after Bangladesh's anti-terrorism officers raided their hideout early Sunday, police said. Police cordoned off a one-story building in a remote village in the western district of Jhenaidah on a tip-off that gunnies were holed up there. "There was an exchange of fire between counter-terrorism police and the holy warriors. An holy warrior was killed," district police chief Mizanur Rahman told AFP. "And when we came closer to the building, another holy warrior carried out a suicide kaboom. He was struck down in his prime," he said, adding two coppers were also injured in the blast. He said the gunnies were members of a new faction of the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), blamed for a a wave of deadly attacks against religious minorities and foreigners in the Moslem-majority country.

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Bangladesh

Four Killed as Bangladesh Police Storm Islamist Hideout

2017-03-17

[AnNahar] Four suspected snuffies were killed in Bangladesh early Thursday after police stormed a house where they said members of an Islamist group blamed for a series of deadly attacks were hiding out. Police raided the building in the southern port city of Chittagong late Wednesday, sparking a 15-hour stand-off with bully boyz armed with guns and grenades during which around 20 civilians were trapped inside. On Thursday, national police chief A.K.M Shahidul Hoque declared the operation over and said four members of the homegrown murderous Moslem group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) had died. At least two of them were killed in a suicide kaboom, said Sanwar Hossain, additional deputy commissioner of the police counter-terrorism unit. "They came out in the stairs and carried out a big kaboom. Parts of their bodies were spread to 25-30 yards (metres)," Hossain said. Another 20 people who were trapped inside the building overnight after police cordoned off the place were taken out safely, police officials have said. Two coppers were maimed in the operation. "The snuffies threw at least 10 grenades at our officers. They were staying in one of the ground floor flats in the building," additional superintendent of police Mosiuddowla Reza told AFP. "They also shot up us with pistols." Elite counter-terrorism police reinforcements were sent to the area from the capital after midnight to storm the compound, he said. Bangladesh has suffered a spate of deadly attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities in recent years. The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group and Al Qaeda have claimed many of these attacks, but the government and police reject that and say homegrown groups are responsible. They have blamed the JMB for the attacks, including a siege at a Dhaka cafe in which 22 people including 18 foreign hostages were killed. Security forces launched a crackdown on snuffies following the siege, arresting scores of suspected snuffies and killing several top leaders of homegrown myrmidon cells. This month they have carried out a series of raids as part of a major security crackdown in the Chittagong region after detaining two snuffies with grenades earlier this month on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway. On Wednesday police also raided a second suspected hideout in the area where they incarcerated Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! two people who they said were JMB members. One tried to blow herself up before she was taken into custody, Reza told AFP. "We arrested them as the wife was holding her three-month-old child in one hand and tried to explode the boom jacket with the other," he said. "Our bomb disposal unit later defused the vest."

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Bangladesh

‘Spiritual leader’ of Dhaka cafe attackers is arrested by Bangladesh police

2017-03-04

[SCMP] Bangladesh police said on Friday they had locked away Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! the "spiritual leader" of a banned Islamist outfit alleged to have carried out a series of deadly attacks in the country. Police detained Maolana Abul Kashem, 60, from a hideout in the capital on Thursday night after an investigation linked him to the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) group. Mohibul Islam Khan, deputy commissioner of the Dhaka police counter-terrorism unit, said Kashem had inspired the attack on a Dhaka cafe last July in which 22 people including 18 foreign hostages were killed. "He was the spiritual leader of the JMB," Khan said. "In our primary investigation we have found all [the Death Eaters] were inspired by him." Khan said Kashem had met the alleged criminal mastermind of the cafe attack Tamim Chowdhury "several times". Bangladesh has suffered a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities in recent years. Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group have grabbed credit for several of the attacks, but Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. ’s secular government has pinned the blame on local Death Eaters. Bangladeshi security forces have launched a nationwide crackdown on Islamist Death Eater groups since the cafe attack, arresting scores of suspected Death Eaters. Several top leaders of the JMB have also been killed, most in what police said were shoot-outs. Rights groups have voiced suspicions these may have been staged. Another counter-terrorism police officer Sanwar Hossain said Kashem had headed an Islamic seminary before joining the JMB in 1998.

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Bangladesh

RAB interested to grill nabbed militants

2016-11-19

[Dhaka Tribune] Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) expressed its interest to interrogate the five alleged New JMB Lions of Islam who were reportedly tossed in the clink Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! by the elite crime busting unit on Wednesday night from different parts of the capital. A 40-year-old Islamic spiritual leader and a 27-year-old explosives expert were among the group detained in a series of raids in the capital late Wednesday and early Thursday. Abul Kalam Azad, director of intelligence wing of RAB on Friday told the Dhaka Tribune that they would seek permission from the Home Ministry to investigate the case, confirming the common knowledge that the RAB and police are evidently not on the best of terms. Azad said: "Usually, after a case is field, the police take charge of the investigation. But as we are working on controlling militancy since the agency’s inception, we want to investigate the whole issue." Earlier on Wednesday night, a team of the elite force detained Maulana Abdul Hakim Faridi alias Sufian, 40, Rajibul Islam alias Ahmed, 29, Gazi Kamrus Salam Sohan alias Abu Abdullah, 27, Md Sohel Rana alias Khadem alias Moazzin alias Shahidullah, 23, and Sheikh Md Abu Saleh alias Liton alias Huraira, 42, from Airport Railway Station and Adabar areas in the capital. "They belonged to Sarwar-Tamim group of the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)," RAB said in a statement, referring to the myrmidon group the government has blamed for the July attack. "As the arrestees played a very important role for New JMB, we need to know about their other activities and accomplices," Azad added. It is mentionable that there have been a few instances in the recent past that indicate a rift within these two forces, and expression of RAB’s interest to interfere into police responsibility clearly shows that the rift is widening.

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Bangladesh

Bangladesh Arrests Five Linked to Deadly Cafe Siege

2016-11-18

[AnNahar] Five people linked to the Islamist murderous Moslem group behind July's Dhaka cafe siege that left 22 hostages, most of them foreigners, dead have been tossed in the calaboose Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! , Bangladesh police said Thursday. An Islamic spiritual leader and an explosives expert were among the group detained in a series of raids in the capital late Wednesday and early Thursday, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) police unit said. "They belonged to Sarwar-Tamim group of the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)," RAB said in a statement, referring to the murderous Moslem group the government has blamed for the July attack. RAB said a 27-year-old electrical engineer who made explosives for the group and provided training, and a 40-year-old spiritual leader who preached Jihad to the group's budding snuffies were among those arrested. The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group and al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent grabbed credit for the siege at Holey Artisan Bakery cafe in Dhaka's posh Gulshan neighborhood. But Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. 's government has blamed the homegrown JMB and another group called Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT). The leader of the JMB, Sarwar Jahan, and the criminal mastermind of the cafe siege, Tamim Chowdhury, a Canadian citizen of Bangladeshi origin, were both killed in raids outside the capital by security forces in recent months. The July carnage triggered a security force crackdown on Islamist murderous Moslems, with police shooting dead nearly 40 suspected murderous Moslems and arresting scores more since.

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Bangladesh

Bangladesh Says Head of Group Blamed for Cafe Siege Dead

2016-10-22

[An Nahar] The head of a Bangladeshi Islamist group accused of staging a deadly siege at a cafe and the killing of several foreigners died while trying to evade arrest earlier this month, security officials said Friday. Abdur Rahman died in hospital on October 8 after jumping from the fifth floor of a building on the outskirts of Dhaka during a raid by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite security unit. The identity of Rahman, who was leader of the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), was later confirmed through his possessions and by his family, who were shown pictures of his body, the RAB said in a statement. Several documents, letters and emails that were later retrieved by the RAB "all proved that Abdur Rahman was the emir (head) of the new JMB", the statement added. Bangladeshi authorities are insistent that the JMB was behind a siege at an upmarket cafe in Dhaka on July 1 in which 20 mostly foreign hostages were killed, even though the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group grabbed credit. The RAB said that some of the documents recovered during their raid had been signed by Rahman using the alias Sheikh Abu Ibrahim al Hanif. While the statement made no mention of IS, the April issue of Dabiq, a magazine affiliated to the organization, reported that Shaykh Abu Ibrahim Al Hanif was the jihadists' "emir" in Bangladesh. A RAB front man refused to comment on whether the two were the same men. RAB, which is tasked with tackling militancy and serious crimes, has listed 19 attacks carried out by the JMB, including the fatal shootings of an Italian aid worker and a Japanese national late last year and a series of murders of religious minorities. The siege at the cafe in July was by far the deadliest attack and caused widespread alarm about the growth of Islamist extremism in a country where more than 90 percent of the population is Moslem.

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Bangladesh

Top militant shot dead in Bangladesh

2016-09-03

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Bangladesh police raided a Death Eater hideout in the capital Friday, killing a suspected top Death Eater who helped plan the deadly attack on a cafe in Dhaka that left 22 people dead in July. Police said the slain hard boy was Major Murad, 35, who stabbed and injured three officers during the raid on a five-storey building in Dhaka's Rupnagar neighbourhood where the suspect had rented a flat. "He was a senior member of the JMB (Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh) and trained the five gunnies who attacked the Gulshan cafe," Sanwar Hossain, a senior counter-terrorism officer in the Dhaka police force, told AFP. Chief trainer "He was smart and fluent in English. He was the chief trainer of the JMB and one of the planners of the cafe attack. He was rubbed out after he stabbed three of our officers who were trying to take him alive," he said, adding that the three coppers had been hospitalised. The raid came days after police potted three suspected bandidos bandidos hard boys including the alleged criminal mastermind of the cafe attack, JMB leader Tamim Chowdhury, a Canadian citizen. Police have blamed the JMB for a wave of murders targeting foreigners and members of religious minorities in which at least 80 people have been killed. Since the cafe attack in July police have rubbed out at least 27 Death Eaters. The ISIS grabbed credit for the Gulshan attack, releasing photos from inside the cafe during the siege and of the five men who carried out the deadly assault and were rubbed out at its finale. But Bangladeshi authorities have rejected the claim, saying international Death Eater networks have no presence in the world’s third-largest Moslem-majority nation. Critics say Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. 's administration is in denial about the nature of the threat posed by gunnies and accuse her of trying to exploit the attacks to demonise her domestic opponents. Earlier this week, US Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat, conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... said during a visit to Dhaka that there was evidence to link the bandidos bandidos hard boys behind the recent spate of deadly attacks in Bangladesh to ISIS.

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Bangladesh

Dhaka cafe attack suspect dies in custody after 'torture'

2016-07-10

[DAWN] A Bangladeshi teenager who police say was a suspect in last week's deadly attack on a Dhaka cafe has died in jug, with his family insisting he was a hostage and alleging torture by security forces. Zakir Hossain Shawon, 18, a kitchen assistant at the Holey Artisan Bakery, was tossed in the clink Please don't kill me! after last week's deadly siege by suspected forces of Evil in which 22 people, including 18 foreigners, died. Police killed five attackers and arrested Shawon together with another man over "suspicious activities", treating him as a suspect -- a claim vehemently rejected by his family, who claim he was taken hostage like other victims. He died in the intensive care unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital late Friday after five days in the clinic, police and his family said. Shawon's father Abdus Sattar demanded an investigation into his death, saying his "innocent son and the main breadwinner of his family" died due to torture. "His whole body had marks of torture. There were marks of curdled blood in many places. One of his eyes and two knees were blackened. His wrists were blackened. It seems he was hanged by ropes tied to his wrists," Sattar told AFP. Nur Khan Liton, the head of Ain o Salish Kendra, a leading human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... group, said there were doubts about Shawon's involvement in the attack, which was claimed by the turban Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group. "IS has named five attackers and police have identified all five. And he was not among the five," he said. "If he was treated as an associate or helper of the attacker, police must present evidence or information." Police and military representatives denied that Shawon had been tortured in jug. "He was held because of suspicious activities. We did not have any opportunity to interrogate him since he was injured and hospitalised," Dhaka police front man Masudur Rahman told AFP. The teenager's father said he spoke with his son hours before the July 1 carnage when Shawon called to say he had received a bonus payment for Eidul Fitr. He had planned to travel home to celebrate the occasion with the family in Dhaka's suburb. Instead his family saw him in hospital following the attack in Dhaka's upscale Gulshan neighbourhood. "He could not recognise me or his mother and thought we were his brother," the father said. "He would cry out in his sleep, pleading with someone, "Please don't hit me. Let me go," he added. Eid attack Meanwhile the country's police chief said Saturday that Lions of Islam from Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a local turban group blamed by the government for the cafe siege, were behind a separate attack on an Eid gathering. Bangladesh's home minister last week said the banned JMB carried out the Gulshan cafe attack despite the Islamic State group claiming responsibility. Attackers carrying bombs and machetes killed at least three people at a huge prayer rally marking the start of the Moslem festival in the northern town of Sholakia on Thursday. "(The perpetrators) are members of JMB. They did it (the attack) in Gulshan and they also did it here," Inspector General of Police Shahidul Hoque told news hounds in Sholakia. Police have arrested one person over the Eid attack.

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Bangladesh

Bangladesh Arrests 37 'Islamist Militants' in Crackdown

2016-06-12

[An Nahar] Bangladesh police have placed in durance vile Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! 37 suspected Islamist holy warriors as part of a nationwide crackdown on jihadists, an official said Saturday, following a spate of murders of minorities and secular activists. Police officials said more than 1,000 people were detained after the anti-militant drive was launched across the Moslem-majority country on Friday, although that number included regular arrests. "In the last 24 hours, 37 Islamist holy warriors were arrested. They included 27 members of Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)," A.K.M Shahidur Rahman, deputy police inspector general told Agence La Belle France Presse. "Police have also seized one weapon, explosives and ammunition from their possession," he added. Nine members of the JMB, a banned hard boy outfit, were arrested in Rajshahi, Shariful Islam, a police inspector in the northwestern district, told AFP. Suspected Islamists have carried out several attacks in Rajshahi in recent months, including the killing of a liberal professor in April. Police have blamed the JMB for most of the murders of minorities and secular activists in the last three years, which have seen nearly 50 people brutally killed. The murders have spiked in recent weeks, with a gruesome wave of killings that has spanned from the capital Dhaka to remote parts of the north and coastal south. On Friday, a Hindu monastery worker was hacked to death in the northwestern district of Pabna. Also this week, an elderly Hindu priest was found nearly decapitated in a rice field, a Christian grocer was hacked to death near a church and the wife of an anti-terrorism officer was stabbed and shot. Most of the latest attacks have been claimed either by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group or by a South Asian branch of al-Qaeda. Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. 's government has, however, blamed homegrown Islamists for the attacks, rejecting claims of responsibility from the international jihadist groups. The JMB is one of the main domestic hard boy outfits suspected of the murders, with police shooting dead five members of the group since Tuesday.

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