Bangladesh attack: Dhaka's Holey cafe attackers were known to police

Bangladeshi officials have named five of the men who carried out the country's worst terror attack on Friday and said they were known to police.

Twenty hostages, most of them foreign, were killed when Islamist militants stormed a cafe in the capital, Dhaka. Two police officers also died and 30 were injured. After a 12-hour siege commandos rescued 13 people.

The so-called Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind the attack but the government has denied this. Bangladesh's home minister said on Sunday that the attackers belonged to a local militant group which has been banned for more than a decade.


"They are members of the Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh," Asaduzzaman Khan said. "They have no connections with the Islamic State." Mr Khan said the men made no demands during the attack.

He said three of the gunmen were under 22 and had been missing for six months. Police chief Shahidul Hoque made some of the men's first names public: Akash, Bikash, Don, Bandhon and Ripon.