(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Dhaka- Three persons were killed and 30 injured as Bangladesh commandos on Saturday stormed a hideout of suspected Islamist extremists in the country's northeast, rescuing at least 78 civilians, in a major anti-militant drive.
The commandos backed by armoured personnel carriers launched the operation after a more than 30- hour standoff with the extremists who holed up in a five-storey building in Sylhet.
'All 78 people from 28 civilian families who were trapped in the building for more than a day have been rescued by the army's para commando battalion,' said armed forces spokesman Col Rashidul Hasan.
'The operation began at 7am and is still going on.' Police said there were at least two extremists including a woman.
'They are Islamist extremists,' Sylhet police spokesman Zedan al Musa said.
The raid came after a series of suicide attacks on security camps by Islamist extremists this month including one at a police check-point near the country's main international airport on Friday night. Two of the attacks including Friday's blast in which the suicide attacker was killed were claimed by IS.
This month a police elite unit also stormed a building outside the port city of Chittagong, killing four members of the homegrown extremist group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh including one woman.
A forensic doctor confirmed that Friday's attack was a suicide blast with the bomber apparently detonating a bomb tied to his body.
The attack was the third since last Friday, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a camp for the country's elite security force near the airport.
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