Bangladesh arrests five suspected terrorists plotting New Year attack

Police in Bangladesh have arrested five suspected terrorists believed to be plotting to attack New Year celebrations, Reuters reported today.

A counter-terrorism police chief on Wednesday said that the five were believed to be members of a faction of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, JMB, group, which was blamed for an attack on a cafe in Dhaka in July in which 22 people were killed, most of them foreigners.

"They planned to attack on New Year's Eve," Monirul Islam, head of the counter-terrorism police unit, told a news conference.

Bangladeshi authorities have already banned all outdoor gatherings in Dhaka from dusk on December 31st to dawn on January 1st on security grounds, the agency added.

Police have killed more than 40 suspected terrorists in raids since the cafe attack, including the man police said was the mastermind, Bangladesh-born Canadian citizen, Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, added Reuters.