Singapore has detained eight Bangladeshi supporters of the Daesh militant group for plotting terror attacks back home as part of efforts to overthrow the Bangladeshi government, the Home Ministry here said on Tuesday.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said the eight men, who were migrant workers in Singapore, were detained in April under the Internal Security Act (ISA) and were members of a secret group called Daesh in Bangladesh (ISB) that was set up in March this year.
The suspects, working in Singapore’s construction and marine industries, intended to join Daesh as foreign fighters but “as they felt that it would be difficult for them to make
their way to Syria, they focused their plans instead on returning to Bangladesh to overthrow the democratically-elected government through the use of force, establish an
Daesh in Bangladesh and bring it under self-declared caliphate,” the ministry said.
Investigations showed that the group had identified several possible attack targets in Bangladesh.
In a document titled “We Need for Jihad Fight” recovered from their leader and founder of ISB, Rahman Mizanur, 31, there was a list of Bangladeshi government and military officials who could be targeted for attacks, it said.
Rahman as the founder of the group also possessed documents on weapons and bomb making, as well as significant amount of Daesh and Al Qaeda material, which he used to recruit ISB members in Singapore from January this year, the ministry said.
The members had also planned to recruit other Bangladeshi nationals working in Singapore to expand their group and had raised funds to buy firearms to carry out their planned terror attacks in Bangladesh. The ministry said their money has since been seized.
gulftoday.ae/
