Bangladesh minister points to Dhaka link to 26/11

NEW DELHI: Bangladeshi minister for foreign affairs Hassan Mahmud has hinted that terrorists, who launched the November 26 Mumbai attacks, may have used Bangladeshi soil. This is the first time an official from the Bangladeshi government has pointed to a Dhaka hand in the attack.

"Since terrorist attacks have been happening in the region in the past few months, even in Mumbai, there are cross-border linkages of these terrorists," Mahmud was quoted as saying by the Bangladesh-based newspaper 'The Independent'.

"Not only Lashkar (Laskhar-e-Toiba) and HuJI (Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami), but other terror organisations also. They trained in Afghanistan, they were in Pakistan, then they came here. It is dangerous. They cooperate among themselves, now we have to cooperate among ourselves in the region to combat them," Mahmud said.

Earlier reports published in Pakistan's 'Dawn' newspaper said that Islamabad is likely to indicate that the 26/11 attacks were carried out by "an international network of Muslim fundamentalists present in South Asia and spread all the way to Middle East", while making a case for regional anti-terror cooperation.

The daily (in its report dated Feb 2, 2009) had said Pakistani sleuths were "closing in on a Bangladeshi connection" to the attacks and had "evidence of not only the involvement of a banned militant organisation, Harkat-ul-Jihad-e Islami of Bangladesh, but also of its role in planning the attack and training the terrorists".