Bangladesh army today said their assaults inside a militant den in Sylhet today expectedly killed all the four militants there but the operation was still underway to secure the site.
"Our intelligence earlier suggested four militants, one being a woman, were inside there . . . we found four bodies including that of the woman and so assume that no militant was alive anymore," army spokesman Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan told a news briefing as at the end of the fourth day of the security siege of the building.
He added: "I, however, am not announcing yet the end of the Operation Twilight."
Ahsan, the director of military intelligence, said powerful "improvised explosive devices" or IEDs laid by the militants exposed the building to vulnerability requiring the troops to exhaust a process ahead of wrapping up the operation led by Sylhet-based 17th infantry Division commander Major General Anwarul Momen.
Of the four slain, two including a woman were killed today a day after the two others detonated their suicide vests after being shot by the para-commandos while all of them were found on the ground floor of the building, which was occupied presumably by Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (neo-JMB) operatives.
The briefing came shortly after Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told newsmen the military commandos could wrap up their ongoing assault in Sylhet any time neutrilising the militants inside.
The military commandos were called out on Saturday morning, two days after a security siege by police`s SWAT, counter terrorism unit and elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB).
Source: BSS