Bangladesh police have shot dead three suspected militants, including the alleged mastermind of an attack on a cafe in which 20 civilians, mostly foreign nationals, died.
Police officer Sanowar Hossain confirmed to local media on August 27 that Tamim Chowdhury, the Bangladeshi-Canadian citizen believed to be behind the attack, was dead.
A gunfight erupted early August 27 when police raided a militant hideout in Narayanganj, 20 kilometers east of the capital, Dhaka.
Chowdhury, who returned from Canada in 2013, has been leading the banned Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh, which police say carried out the cafe attack in which 18 foreigners were shot and hacked to death in the country's worst terror attack.
Police said nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, an Indian, and a U.S. citizen were killed during the attack.
Bangladesh has seen a spat of killings over the past 18 months targeting liberals or members of minority groups -- killings the government blames on two home-grown groups, JMB and Ansar Al-Islam, which pledge allegiance to Al-Qaeda.