Terrorists threaten to blow up US embassy in Dhaka

Witnesses said anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) troops along with the elite Armed Police Battalion were checking cars and commuters passing through the diplomatic area as part of the intensified vigil.

Police and embassy officials said the US embassy and British,Australian and Canadian High Commissions in Dhaka received the threats from the group,said to be a pan-Asian extremist outfit and closely linked to al-Qaeda,on Thursday night.

However,the US embassy declined to make any official comment on the security issue of the mission.

According to the police officials,the outfit demanded USD 100,000 through Western Union Money Transfer for “releasing the German bomb engineer detained in Malaysia and asked the four countries to shut down their activities within seven days and leave Bangladesh to evade the bomb attacks”.

Security experts said,Jemaah Islamiyah al-Qaeda,little known in Bangladesh,is a Southeast Asian militant group dedicated to the establishment of a Islamic State of their brand in Southeast Asia incorporating Indonesia,Malaysia,the southern Philippines,Singapore and Brunei.

The militant outfit was enlisted in the United Nations list of terrorist organizations linked to al-Qaeda or the Taliban in 2002.