23-04-2024 03:59 PM Jerusalem Timing

One Killed as Bomb Blast Rocks Ahmadi Mosque in Bangladesh

One Killed as Bomb Blast Rocks Ahmadi Mosque in Bangladesh

A bomb exploded Friday at a mosque of the minority Ahmadi Muslim group in Bangladesh’s northwestern town of Bagmara leaving the suspected suicide bomber dead and three other people injured.

Bangladesh attackA bomb exploded Friday at a mosque of the minority Ahmadi Muslim group in Bangladesh's northwestern town of Bagmara leaving the suspected suicide bomber dead and three other people injured, police said.

Police said the bomb blast occurred when the small Ahmadiya Muslim Jamaat mosque at Bagmara, some 250 kilometers (150 miles) from the capital, Dhaka,was packed with worshippers during Friday prayers.

"One person died on the spot and three other people were injured. It seems he was carrying the bomb and it looks like it was a suspected suicide blast," local police chief Motiar Rahman told AFP.

Ahmad Tabshir Choudhury, a spokesman of the Ahmadiya Muslim Jamaat in Bangladesh said there were two unknown people who came to the mosque where nearly 100 people including women joined the Friday prayers.

"The bomb was detonated during the prayers. One of the two unknown people died. It appears that he was a suicide bomber," Choudhury told AFP.

He added that four Ahmadis were injured including one whose condition is serious.

No group has claimed responsibility, but in recent months, homegrown outlawed militant group, Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), and the so-called 'Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant' (ISIL) takfiri group claimed responsibility for bomb attacks on a top Shiite shrine and a Shiite mosque in northern Bangladesh.

Members of other minority groups, including Sufis have also been attacked and killed, and two Christian priests have survived attacks claimed by militants.
   
Ahmadis are a tiny Muslim group in Bangladesh. In the past, they have often been barred from setting up mosques.