NEW DELHI – A counterterrorism official says Bangladesh has discovered who funded the July 1 attack in which a group of assailants tortured and killed 20 hostages at a restaurant in Dhaka.
The police counterterrorism chief, Monirul Islam, says the $101,606 in financing came from three Bangladeshis, including a pediatrician who fled with his family to Syria to join the Islamic State.
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Islam on Tuesday identified the other financiers as a retired army major who donated his pension and savings and a man who donated proceeds from a Dhaka apartment sale. Both were killed in police raids. Islam said the three belonged to the banned militant group Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, or JMB.
The IS claimed the responsibility for the July 1 attack, but Bangladesh’s government insists the JMB was behind it.