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World|life|November 27, 2015 / 02:13 PM
Gunmen strike Shiite mosque in Bangladesh

AKIPRESS.COM - gunmenUnidentified gunmen opened fire on a Shiite mosque in northern Bangladesh on Thursday evening, killing one man and injuring three others during evening prayer, in an attack that echoes last month’s bombing of a Shiite procession.

Shiites are a tiny minority in Bangladesh, whose population of about 160 million is almost entirely Sunni, and have not been the target of sectarian violence. Shamim Mohammad Afzal, director general of Bangladesh’s Islamic Foundation, said the nature and timing of the assault was especially alarming, NYTimes reports.

“We never saw this type of attack in any mosque in the history of Bangladesh,” he said.

The police believe that the attack in October was carried out by members of a banned militant group, Jama’atul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, said Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of the detective branch of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police. Yet there are also indications that international jihadist groups are building links with Bangladesh’s extremist networks.

In a claim released via Twitter accounts linked to the Islamic State, the group took responsibility for Thursday’s attack, saying “soldiers of the caliphate” had opened fire on worshipers with machine guns.

“With permission from Allah, operations will continue on the Rafidha Iranian interests in Bangladesh,” the statement said, using a term for Shiite Muslims, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist groups.

The mosque’s muezzin, Moazzem Hossain, was shot in the head and died later in a hospital. Three other men, including the mosque’s 35-year-old imam, were wounded in the attack and were hospitalized, said Ahsan Habib, the officer in charge at Shibganj police station in Bogra district, about 120 miles north of the Bangladeshi capital.

“I have never heard, and never received any information, that there was rivalry or conflict between the Shiite community and anyone else,” Mr. Habib said. “This attack just astonished me.”

A Shiite leader in the region, Mozaffor Hossen, 35, secretary general of the Bangladesh Imamia Welfare Foundation, said the gunmen brought a lock with them and used it to lock the compound’s gate, then entered the mosque and opened fire.

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