Indian agencies warned Dhaka of terror strikes

INDIA’S intelligence services had warned of a heightened risk of an Islamic State strike on Dhaka in a series of assessments shared last month, a senior Bangladesh security official told The Indian Express.

The assessments did not contain any intelligence that could have directly helped prevent Friday’s attack, but flagged evidence that Bangladeshi extremists were training at secret facilities in India, said the official.

They also warned of heightened Islamic State propaganda, he added.

‘The Indian warnings were one of many pieces of intelligence that jihadists were planning a major operation. There were some pieces of the puzzle available to us, but not enough to piece together a picture of the plot,’ said the Bangladeshi official.

Bangladesh investigators, another official said, are now focusing their efforts on understanding the training and logistics behind the terrorists who carried out the Dhaka strike - timed to coincide with the last Friday of Ramzan, one of the holiest days of the month of fasting.