Bangladesh police arrests 4 women militants of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen

Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen is known for its ideological inclination to ISIS

At least four women terrorists of the outlawed militant outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen were arrested today in Bangladesh, weeks after similar arrests were made here as part of nation-wide crackdown following the country's worst terror attack on an upscale cafe here.

"We carried out the pre-dawn raid acting on a secret tip off... It was a rented house from where these women were conducting drives in recruiting other women in the name of preaching Islam," Sirajganj's district police superintendent Miraz Uddin Ahmed said.

Police also seized a large quantity of bomb-making materials, six improvised bombs, nine Jihadi books, four grenade shells and electrical equipment from the den, he said.

All the four arrested women are married and aged between 18 and 30. They are being questioned by police ahead of subsequent legal procedures.

Earlier on August 16, elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested three women students of a private university and a woman intern at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital for their alleged links with Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB), blamed for the terror attack on an upscale cafe in Dhaka that killed 22 people, including an Indian girl.

JMB is known for its ideological inclination to ISIS.

This is the third such major incident of arresting women militants since July when seven women JMB activists, three of them members of its suicide squad, were arrested from Tangail.

Security agencies have arrested dozens of JMB militants with officials calling some of them as masterminds of the outfit as a nationwide anti-militant security clampdown is underway since the July 1 attack.

Police call the arrested operatives as neo-JMB activists because of their inclination towards the Islamic State terrorist group, which initially claimed the cafe attack. But authorities have denied presence of ISIS in Bangladesh.