Tamim Chowdhury tweeted from the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe in Dhaka to the IS during the Gulshan seige. Tamim, a Bangladeshi-Canadian militant, died in a gunbattle after security forces raided a building in Narayanganj near Dhaka. As the local 'IS chief,' Tamim Chowdhury is the prime architect of Dhaka cafe attack, say police.
A senior official of the Counter-Terrorism and
Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) told the Daily Observer on Sunday that not only Dhaka café attack he also tweeted the so-called local 'IS' Neo-Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) activities to the international terrorists organization, the IS.
According to a police report, Tamim allegedly held meetings with militants in hideout in Kalyanpur to inspire them and provide funds to carry out terrorist activities.
Tamim Chowdhury aka Sheikh Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif reportedly left Canada in 2013 and has been identified by numerous terrorism experts and analysts as the head of Islamic State in Bangladesh.
Police identified one of the suspects of the Dhaka cafe attack as Bangladesh-origin Canadian citizen Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury. He is suspected of being the head of the local chapter of the Neo JMB, according to police.
Police identified Tamim as the prime architect of the recent Dhaka cafe attack that killed at least 22 people.
The sole surviving suspect, Rakibul Hasan, told interrogators that they received arms, funds and weapons from the banned outfit JMB.
Meanwhile, police counter-terrorism chief Monirul Islam has described Tamim as the head of a new faction of the JMB.
The Holey Artisan Bakery attack was the country's worst terrorist attack in Dhaka's high-security diplomatic zone that killed 22 people mostly foreigners.
Police identified him as the head of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, an Islamist militant group, but Tamim has appeared in ISIS propaganda as the leader of the terrorist group's faction in the country.
The so-called Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Dhaka café attack following a series of machete attacks and assassinations, but the government has denied the group has a presence in the country and blamed the atrocity on local organisations.
Five militants armed with guns and knives stormed into the Holey Artisan Bakery and took diners hostage on July 1, forcing them to recite parts of the Quran to be spared and killing anyone who could not. Nine Italians, seven Japanese people including a pregnant woman, an Indian teenager, American student and several Bangladeshis were murdered in the 10-hour siege.
ISIS published photos of the gunmen through its propaganda agencies, showing them dressed in black with Arab-style headscarves, smiling with assault rifles in front of the group's black flag.
The group has been prominently advertising its expansion into Bangladesh, featuring an interview believed to be with Tamim in the April edition of its English language magazine.
ISIS is believed to have drawn much of its local membership from the group, which has been praised in propaganda but made no known pledge of allegiance. Tamim, believed to be around 30 years old, was born in Bangladesh but grew up in Canada.
He lived in Ontario with his family and completed a chemistry degree at the University of Windsor but left Canada in 2013 in a suspected attempt to travel to Syria.
