A British man from London was arrested in Bangladesh on Monday for allegedly recruiting people to fight for the Islamic State militants and other al-Qaida affiliates in the Middle East.
Dhaka police said that Samiun Rahman, who was seen being handcuffed and dressed in a long robe in television footages, has confessed to recruiting in Bangladesh on behalf of the Islamic State (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra, another jihadist outfit in Syria.
News agencies have cited the police as saying that the 24-year-old suspect, who has also used the name Ibn Hamdan Miah, had travelled to Syria with a friend from Britain, and took arms in 2013 in support of Nusra. Rahman was born in London although his parents were from a town north-east of Dhaka. He had been in Bangladesh for six months, police said.
Rahman "was staying in Bangladesh to recruit jihadists for the (Islamic State) and Jabhat al Nusra. He came here as he thought it was possible to sent people from Bangladesh (to Syria," Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of the detective and criminal intelligence division said in a statement.
"We have arrested about five people with whom he had communication and there are another three or four persons we are still trying to identify," the joint commissioner also told The Guardian.
This comes a week after police arrested seven other suspects of the Islamist outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh in a Dhaka suburb. The suspects reportedly also said they had established contact with ISIS. They were in possession of materials that are used to manufacture explosives and were targeting high-profile individuals.
Bangladesh has also been on alert since the Indian media reported this month that four men, including two engineering students, were arrested in the Indian city of Kolkata. They were reportedly trying to travel to Bangladesh to join an ISIS recruiter there, Reuters reported.
