Bangladesh arrest three in madrassa for US attack plot: police

DHAKA (AFP)— Bangladeshi police said Friday they had arrested three suspected militants in the southeastern city of Chittagong who were planning to attack US targets in the country's capital.

Deputy Police Commissioner Monirul Islam said Bangladeshi authorities were given intelligence reports concerning the men's whereabouts following the arrest of two other suspected militants in the United States last month.

"We raided a madrassa in Chittagong and arrested three Bangladeshi men late Thursday evening," he told AFP.

"We believe they have links to the banned (Islamist) group Harkat-ul Jihad al Islami (HuJI) and were planning to attack American interests in Dhaka."

A spokesman for the US Embassy in Dhaka said he could not comment on security matters.

Islam said information about the Bangladeshi suspects had come from the United States following the arrests last month in Chicago of David Coleman Headley, 49, a US citizen, and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48, a Canadian citizen born in Pakistan.

US authorities have charged the men with plotting terror attacks abroad, including on the Danish newspaper which published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2005.

Headley, 49, a US citizen who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006, was arrested by the FBI on October 3 at Chicago's O'Hare airport before boarding a flight to Philadelphia en route to Pakistan.