The Islamic State group Friday night released a new video featuring the five terrorists who killed 23 people including 17 foreigners at a Gulshan restaurant on July 1.
Screenshot of the Islamic State-released video on Bangladesh
In the 15-minute video message – both in Bangla and Arabic, the international terrorist group calls on jihadists to launch armed attacks on the atheists, apostates and crusaders as revenge to the persecution on IS fighters in Iraq and Syria, and elsewhere.
The video was first released by the Arabic Nashir channel on Telegram. Nashir is the official IS media channel
Earlier in the day, IS’ Bangla media At-Tamkin made an announcement on its website that they would release a video produced by the “Bilad al-Bengal media office.” Bilad, in this context, means province or region.
The video is released in less than a month after the law enforcers killed Gulshan attack mastermind Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, or Sheikh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif, the man it says was leading the operations in Bangladesh, on August 27.
The five terrorists in the video, believed to be recorded sometime before the Gulshan attack, made statements to justify their stance, criticising the democratic system and political leaders. They also came down heavily on the Islamic scholars for resisting Muslims from joining the armed jihad of the Islamic State.
In the video, the five terrorists made statements to justify their stance, criticising the democratic system and political leaders
The five Gulshan cafe attackers – Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz, Khairul Islam Payel, Shafiqul Islam Uzzal and Meer Saameh Mubasser – were killed in a commando operation on July 2.
Only six days after the attack, IS released a video featuring three Bangladeshi fighters promising more operations in the country.
On July 7, on the Eid day, militants attacked police outside the Sholakia Eid congregation and killed two policemen. Another woman was killed during a gunfight between the police and the attackers. One of the militants was killed at that time.
Police launched crackdown on the militants after the two attacks, and have so far killed at least 31 members of the New JMB, who has link to the IS group. They have killed 45 people in 26 attacks conducted since September last year.
Nine members of the group were killed at Kallyanpur of Dhaka in “Operation Storm 26” on July 26. All of them were believed to have got training to launch terrorist attacks.
IS in April claimed that they wanted to attack India and Myanmar from its base in Bangladesh, which they identify as Bengal. In June, IS recognised its Bangladesh wing as a covert unit.
The government, however, maintains that there is no organisational base of IS in Bangladesh, and that the attacks were carried out by a faction of banned militant group Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).
This article was first published on Dhaka Tribune