A Dhaka court today placed bomb expert Mukit alias Boma Maulana, the mastermind of cocktail attacks on the premises of the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge Court, on a four-day remand in a case filed under Special Power Act of Lalbagh police station. Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Zaki Al Farabi passed the order as police produced him before the court and pleaded to place on four-day remand. Earlier, on December 25, a team of Lalbagh Division of DB arrested him from Chawkbazar area in Old Dhaka. According to the DB, the arrested Boma Maulana collected gunpowder and made about 400 bombs from October 27 to December 16. Later, these bombs were delivered to different areas of the capital. Jubo Dal President Sultan Salahuddin Tuku supplied gunpowder to make bombs. "They (bomb attackers) were rewarded if pictures of vandalism or arson attack were sent to London. One of the bombs supplied by Maulana was detonated on the premises of the Dhaka Metropolitan Sessions Judge Court," the DB added.   Source: BSS

Police officials said the blast took place in Hussainabad area of the district in which a camp of labourers of a construction company was targeted. The company is constructing a road in the area. Soon after the blast, police and personnel of other security forces rushed to the site and shifted the injured to the district hospital where one of them succumbed to his injuries. He was identified as Saddam Hussain Khosa who received multiple injuries in the powerful blast. The injured included police constables Usman Ali and Mehtab Ali and labourer Dahib Khan Jigrani. “The condition of three injured is stated to be serious who were shifted to La­­rkana in Sindh for treatment,” SP Sohbatpur Khadim Hussain told Dawn, adding that un­known miscreants used a time bomb which went off near the camp of labourers. Further investigation was in progress, he added. Security forces launch­­ed a search operation in the area to arrest the elements involved in the bomb attack. No one has claimed responsibility for the blast so far.   Source: DAWN

Eleven people were killed in a suspected militant attack in northern Pakistan, caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said on Sunday. Kakar posted on X, previously known as Twitter, that a "terrorist attack" in North Waziristan "claimed the lives of 11 innocent laborers." According to security and police officials, a suspected improvised explosive device (IED) detonated beneath a truck transporting workers to an army construction site in Waziristan, situated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghanistan border. No organization has yet taken responsibility for the incident. Rise in Islamist militant attacks Over the past year, Pakistan has witnessed an uptick in attacks orchestrated by Islamist militants, especially after the dissolution of a cease-fire agreement between the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and the national government. Other extremist groups, including the so-called "Islamic State," have claimed responsibility for several attacks. A major explosion at a political gathering in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa organized by a religious faction last month resulted in the deaths of 45 individuals.

Rooms were opened at a local school for affected residents to wait in as authorities attempt to defuse the bomb. It's not the first time an unexploded WWII-era bomb has been dug up in a large German city. Around 13,000 were told to temporarily evacuate their homes in the German city of Düsseldorf after a World War II-era bomb was found, firefighters said on Monday night. The US-made bomb reportedly weighs 500 kilograms (1100 pounds). City authorities said firefighters are expected to defuse the bomb overnight. Police have closed off roads in a 500-meter (550-yard) radius from where the bomb was found. In the meantime, two rooms at local schools were made available for affected residents. Unexploded bombs not uncommon in Germany Long distance trains were disrupted by the discovery of the bomb, while several local bus and tram lines were halted. The ground in many German cities remains riddled with unexploded bombs that are regularly discovered at construction sites and other excavations, 78 years after WWII ended. In 2020, 13,000 people in Frankfurt were forced to evacuate after a similar-sized British bomb was dug up. In December 2021, a WWII-era bomb exploded at a construction site in Munich, injuring four people.

A suicide bomber on a motorcycle rammed into a police truck near the city of Sibi. It's the latest in a series of attacks against police in the South Asian country. A suicide bombing killed at least nine police officers in southwest Pakistan on Monday, a police spokesperson said. Another 16 people were wounded from the blast, which targeted a police truck near Sibi, a city 160 km (100 miles) east of Quetta in Balochistan province. "The suicide bomber was riding a motorbike and hit the truck from behind," senior police official Abdul Hai Aamir told the AFP news agency. Authorities said the police officers were returning from a week-long cattle show where they had been providing security. Photos of the aftermath showed the truck overturned on the road with its windows shattered. "The terrorists who are carrying out such attacks are the enemy of Pakistan," said Balochistan's Chief Minister Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo. Culprit unclear No group immediately responsibility for the suicide bombing on Monday, but it comes amid an increase in attacks against Pakistan's police after a breakdown in peace talks between the government and the Taliban in November. "Terrorism in Balochistan is part of a nefarious agenda to destabilize the country," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement. Balochistan, which borders both Afghanistan and Iran, has also long been targeted by ethnic separatist groups. Baloch separatists say they do not see profits from the region's vast natural resources. Locals also say billions of dollars invested by China under the Belt and Road Initiative has not reached them.

Authorities are investigating the death of Daria Dugina, whose father has been called Putin's "brain." The car she was driving exploded, her father may have been the target. The daughter of ultra-nationalist Putin ally Alexander Dugin was killed by a car bomb near Moscow overnight. Daria Dugina died after a suspected explosive device on the car she was driving detonated, investigators from the Moscow region said in a statement. TV footage showed investigators collecting debris from the roadside where the explosion happened. They have opened a murder case and are considering all versions of events. A spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has denied any responsibility for the incident. What happened? Dugina’s car exploded on Saturday evening as she drove home from a cultural festival that she had attended with her father. This was the father’s vehicle. Darya [normally drove] another car but she took his car today, while Alexander went in a different way, Andrey Krasnov, Dugin’s friend and the head of the Russian Horizon social movement, told Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency. He returned, he was at the site of the tragedy. As far as I understand, Alexander or probably they together were the target. Who is Alexander Dugin? Alexander Dugin is an ultra-nationalist ideologue who is seen as a key architect behind the current worldview of top Kremlin lawmakers. He is also seen as having influence over President Vladimir Putin himself even being called Putin’s brain by Western media but some Russia watchers have downplayed Dugin’s influence in recent months. The prolific political author has long advocated for a new Russian empire, and was an ardent supporter of the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russian authorities described his 29-year-old daughter as a political expert in her own right. She recently appeared on state TV to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. Dasha, like her father, has always been at the forefront of confrontation with the West, nationalist TV station Tsargrad said on Sunday. Both father and daughter are the subject of American and British sanctions. Ukraine denies responsibility On Sunday, Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak denied any involvement with the explosion. Ukraine surely doesn’t have anything to do with yesterday’s explosion because we’re not a criminal state, unlike Russia, and definitely not a terrorist state, Podolyak said on national television. Some, like former Putin advisor Sergei Markov and Denis Pushilin, president of the separatist Donetsk Peoples Republic, have nevertheless blamed the incident on Ukraine. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Telegram the Ukrainian theory had not yet been confirmed, but it would amount to state terrorism, if proven true.

A Chattogram court today sentenced five activists of banned Islamist outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) to death in a case filed over the bomb attacks at two Jam-e-Mosques inside the Isha Khan Naval Base at Patenga during the Jumma prayers on December 18 in 2015. The death penalty awarded are former Navy member M Sakhawat Hossain, ballkeeper Abdul Mannan, Ramzan Ali, Babul Rahman alias Roni and Abdul Mannan's elder brother JMB member Abdul Ghaffar. Anti-Terrorism Special Tribunal of Chattogram Judge Mohammad Abdul Halim delivered the verdict in presence of four convicted persons except Sakhawat Hossain. According to the prosecution story, in brief, the bomb exploded in the two Jam-e-Mosques inside the Isha Khan Naval base at Patenga within 10 minutes during the Jumma prayers on December 18, 2015. Along with the Navy members, locals also offered prayers in the mosques on Friday. A total of 24 military-civilian people were injured in the blasts. On September 3, 2016, nine months after the explosion, Naval Provost Marshal Commander M Abu Sayed filed two separate cases under the Anti-Terrorism and Explosives Act in the city's EPZ Police Station over the blasts. The accused in the case are former Navy member M Sakhawat Hossain, ball keeper Abdul Mannan, Ramzan Ali and Babul Rahman alias Roni and JMP chief coordinator of Chattogram region Raisul Islam Khan Noman alias Nafis alias Fardin.   Fardin was killed in an explosion while making grenades at Sherpur in Bogra on April 3, 2016. Due to this, his name was excluded from the charge-sheet of the case. Inspector Mohammad Osman Gani of the EPZ Police Station submitted the charge-sheet before the court accusing five JMB men including Abdul Ghaffer on October 15, 2017. The accused were also fined Taka 50 thousand each. In the case, the court framed charges against the militants on January 28 in 2020. After examining 17 prosecution witnesses, out of 24, the court pronounced the verdict today in presence of four convicts. Source: BSS AH

The High Court (HC) today upheld death sentence for10 people, convicted by the lower court concerned in a case lodged over an attempt to murder Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Kotalipara, Gopalganj, in 2000. A High Court division virtual bench of Justice Jahangir Hossain and Justice Md Badruzzaman pronounced the judgement, dismissing jail appeals filed by the convicts. The 10 convicts are- Wasim Akter alias Tarek alias Marfot Ali, Rashed Driver alias Abul Kalam alias Rasheduzzaman alias Shimon Khan, Eusuf alias Mosahab Morol alias Abu Musa Harun, Sheikh Farid alias Mawlana alias Osman, Hafez Jahangir Alam Badar, Mawlana Abubakkar alias Hafez Selim Hawlader, Hafez Mowlana Eahia, Mufti Shafikur Rahman, Mufti Abdul Hai and Moulana Abdur Roub alias Mufti Abdul Roub alias Abdul Razzak alias Abu Omor. All of them are leaders and activists of banned militant outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Huji). Attorney General AM Amin Uddin and Deputy Attorney General Dr Md Bashir Ullah and Assistant Attorney General AM Mohammad Shahin Mridha took part in the hearing for the state. “Prosecution has proved the wide-ranging conspiracy of the convicts to make the country leaderless by killing Sheikh Hasina. They have also confessed their crimes under section 164. We are satisfied with the judgement,” the attorney general said. Dhaka 2nd Speedy Trial Tribunal on August 20, 2017, sentenced 10 persons to death in the case, as Judge Mamtaz in her order had said the convicts can be executed either by hanging or by shooting, with permission from the High Court. The lower court had examined 68 witnesses out of the total 83. According to the case documents, army men recovered a 76-kg powerful bomb on July 22, 2000, from the premises of Sheikh Lutfor Rahman Government Ideal College when a podium was being made for Prime Minister’s rally. Another powerful bomb was recovered in the area the very next day. Then Kotalipara Police Station sub-inspector Nur Hossain filed a case in this regard on that day. CID assistant superintendant of police Munshi Atikur Rahman on April 8, 2001, filed charge sheet against Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) chief Mufti Abdul Hannan and others. Later the case was transferred to the Dhaka court. Mufti Hannan has already been executed on April 12, 2017, for 2004 grenade attack at Hazrat Shahjalal (RA) shrine in Sylhet. His name was dropped from Prime Minister murder attempt case. Source: BSS AH

A bomb weighing 250 kilograms has been recovered from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka. The cylinder like bomb was found while excavating soil for under construction third terminal of the airport. Confirming the information in the afternoon on Wednesday Director of Shahjalal International Airport Group Captain AHM Touhid Ul Ahsan told Rtv news that the piling work of Shahjalal Airport was going on in the morning. At that time the workers saw the cylinder like bomb. Later Bangladesh Air Force Bomb Disposal Unit defused the bomb in the afternoon. We think that it might be one of the bombs thrown from the airplane in 1971. But no casualty has been reported. It was known that after defusing the bomb it was taken to Muktagachha airbase in Mymensingh. This huge sized abandoned bomb was found three meters beneath to the ground while doing the piling work. AH  

A court in Dhaka on Monday sentenced 10 people to death in a case filed over the bomb blast at a CPB rally in Paltan area in 2001. Additional Metropolitan Magistrate Court Judge Rabiul Alam delivered the verdict. The convicts are - Mufti Moin Uddin Sheikh, Arif Hasan Sumon, Maulana Sabbir Ahmed, Shawkat Osman alias Sheikh Farid, Jahangir Alam Badar, Mohibul Muttakin, Aminul Mursalin, Mufti Abdul Hai, Mufti Shafikur Rahman, and Nur Islam. Moin Uddin, Sumon, Sabbir and Shawkat are in police custody while the rest are on the run. The court also fined them Tk 20,000 each. Besides, the court acquitted Md Mashiur Rahman and Rafikul Islam Miraj. Another accused in the case, Mufti Abdul Hannan, was executed in a separate case. Argument in the case concluded on December 2. Testimonies of 46 witnesses were recorded. Five CPB activists were killed and 20 others injured in a bomb attack on the party’s rally on January 20, 2001 at Paltan. The case was closed in December 2003 as investigations found no evidence against the accused people in the case and later in 2005 the case was reopened. Source: UNB AH