Bangladesh arrests cafe attackers’ ‘spiritual leader’

DHAKA AFP March3, 2017- Bangladesh police said Friday they had arrested 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 told AFP.   

Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group have claimed responsibility for several of the attacks, but Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s secular government has pinned the blame on local extremists.