DHAKA: Bangladeshi police killed nine suspected Islamist extremists in a gun-battle on Tuesday after storming a hideout where they said a new mass attack was being planned.

Police said they belonged to a Bangladeshi group blamed for an attack on a Dhaka cafe earlier this month in which 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, were killed and had been planning another large-scale assault.

“Nine Islamist militants were killed after a two hour-long gunfight,” deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Masud Ahmed said, adding another extremist was shot and arrested during the raid in the capital’s Kalyanpur neighbourhood.

National police chief A.K.M Shahidul Hoque told reporters they suspected all 10 were members of the homegrown extremist group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which was blamed for the Dhaka cafe attack.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2016