WORLD NEWS | Fri Oct 21, 2016 | 8:36am EDT

Bangladesh says dead militant headed group behind cafe attack

By Ruma Paul | DHAKA

A militant who died in a raid in Bangladesh this month was identified as the head of a militant group blamed for a deadly attack on a cafe that killed 22 people, mostly foreigners, security officials said on Friday.

Abdur Rahman leapt to his death from a five-story building as he tried to escape the raid on Oct. 8 on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka, by the police-led Rapid Action Battalion, an elite force spearheading the counter-terrorism effort.

Battalion chief Benazir Ahmed said several documents, emails and letters retrieved during the raid confirmed Rahman was head of a new faction of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), known as New JMB, and went by the name Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif.

"Rahman's real name was Sarwar Jahan," Ahmed told a news conference. "He was arrested for taking part in an attack on police in 2003, and nine months later freed on bail, after which he disappeared."In its April issue, Dabiq, a journal of militant group Islamic State, reported that Abu Ibrahim al-Hanif was the jihadists' "emir" in Bangladesh.

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