Dhaka Attack: Spotlight on Tamim Chy

Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury had accompanied the five Holey Artisan Bakery attackers from their Bashundhara flat to Gulshan and left the area after bidding them farewell just before the café siege began around 8:40pm on July 1, said a lead investigator.

The Bangladeshi-Canadian, officials say, is one of the masterminds of the bakery attack. Police have announced a cash reward for information leading to his arrest.

"He [Tamim] walked with the [five] attackers up to a point in Gulshan and then said his goodbyes," the investigator, who is from the DMP's counterterrorism unit tasked with probing the café attack, told this newspaper yesterday.

Tamim was at the hideout on Road 6 at Block E in Bashundhara residential area for a few days before the Gulshan incident. He also held meetings with the militants about the terror strike, added the official. 

The five militants, carrying weapons including semi-automatic rifles, grenades and machetes, held diners hostage at the upscale eatery in the diplomatic zone.

The ensuing 11-hour standoff ended after the army-led commandos stormed the café. By the time, the militants had killed 20 hostages, including 17 foreigners, and two policemen in the worst-ever terror incident in the country.   

The gunmen were killed in the commando drive, codenamed "Operation Thunderbolt".

Another investigator said the militants had planned that if they faced any obstruction at any checkpoint on their way to Gulshan, two of them would take on the police while three others would rush to the bakery and occupy it.

Officials have found Tamim's involvement also in the Sholakia attack on the July 7 Eid day.

Around 8:45am that day, seven to eight youths attacked policemen with sharp weapons, guns and bombs at a checkpoint near the historic Sholakia Eidgah in Kishoreganj where over three lakh people offer Eid prayers.  

Police retaliated immediately.

The incident left four people, including two constables, an attacker, and a local woman, dead.

Tamim went to Kishoreganj before the attack, Lt Col M Abul Kalam Azad, director of Rab's intelligence wing, told The Daily Star yesterday.

On the morning of the Eid day, he took the youths to a place near the police checkpoint in a CNG-run auto-rickshaw, briefed them and then left Kishoreganj, the official added. 

Law enforcers believe the youths launched the attack within half an hour of Tamim's leaving Kishoreganj.     

Tamim was also the mentor of the group of nine militants, killed in a police operation at Kalyanpur on July 26.

He used to frequent their flat in Kalyanpur and have meetings with them, give motivational speeches and guide them on planning militant attacks, according to the statement of a case filed following the police operation named "Storm 26".

The accused in the case, including Tamim, provided the nine militants with financial support, firearms, ammunition and explosives, the statement said, adding that the accused also trained the radicals.

On August 2, Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque has declared cash rewards of Tk 20 lakh each for information leading to the arrest of Tamim and sacked army major Syed Ziaul Haq.

The bounty on Tamim was announced over recent terror attacks and on Zia over targeted killings of individuals, police say.

Tamim came under law enforcers' radar last year although he entered the country in a flight from Dubai on October 5, 2013.

Investigators believe he is leading a local militant group named New JMB which is inspired by the ideology of Islamic State.

According to the IS mouthpiece Dabiq magazine, Tamim identifies himself as Shaykh Abu Ibrahim Al-Hanif, the "Amir of the Khilafah's Soldiers in Bengal."

The government rules out any organisational presence of IS in Bangladesh.

Monirul Islam, chief of the counterterrorism unit, told reporters at the DMP Media Centre yesterday said they have information about the trainer of the Gulshan attackers, arms suppliers and financiers.

He, however, would not disclose any name.

An official said the information they have got so far suggests that the arms used in the cafe attack were smuggled into the country through the northern and Chittagong regions.

To a query, Monirul said they are working to ensure no more terror attack is carried out in or outside Dhaka.

"If we fail to work relentlessly, they [militants] might get reorganised and carry out further attacks. But we will not give them the chance," he added.