The Islamic State has purportedly claimed responsibility for the murder of an Italian charity worker in Bangladesh in a jihadist threat monitoring portal, SITE Intelligence Group.
An NGO official, Cesare Tavella, aged around 50, was shot dead on Monday evening at the heart of Dhaka’s diplomatic enclave in Gulshan amid the UK and Australia’s security concerns.
This would be the first attack in Bangladesh by the radical Sunni Islamist militant group that has seized large swathes of territory in eastern Syria and across northern and western Iraq.
The government has vowed zero tolerant to any form of militant and extremism.
Police earlier in May arrested a group planning to float an organisation like the IS in order to establish Khilafat in Bangladesh.
The SITE Intelligence Group ran the story of the IS claim with a message written in Arabic.
The IS claimed their responsibility just hours after the murder that left law-enforcing agencies, who were allaying Cricket Australia’s concerns on Monday, puzzled.
Witnesses told bdnews24.com the assailants tailed Tavella, the project manager of NGO ICCO Cooperation’s Profitable Opportunities for Food Security (PROOFS) programme, before gunned him down on Road 90 at about 7pm.
He was jogging wearing t-shirt and three-quarter pants on the street close to the High Commission of Pakistan and Bangladesh Bank governor’s residence.
Source: Bd news24