Bangladesh's counter-terrorism police have arrested an ISIS member who returned to the country after fighting for the militant group in Syria, police said Wednesday.
Dhaka launched a major crackdown against homegrown extremists following an attack by a local group on a cafe in the capital in 2016 that killed 22 people, including 18 foreigners.
Police said Motaj Abdul Majid Kafiluddin Bepari, 33, joined ISIS in Syria and later returned to Bangladesh in February and made contact with a new faction of local ISIS-inspired extremist outfit Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), blamed for a series of attacks, including the 2016 cafe attack, counter-terrorism official Wahiduzzaman Noor told AFP.
Officers arrested Bepari near a mosque in Dhaka's Uttara neighborhood on May 5, and he has been charged under anti-terrorism laws, Noor added.
"He went to Syria in 2018 and fought for ISIS."
Bepari's arrest came after counter-terrorism police alerted airport authorities about the possible return of more than 50 Bangladesh-origin ISIS extremists after the group's defeat in Syria, deputy commissioner of Dhaka police Mohibul Islam Khan told AFP.
