Monitoring group SITE has stood by its report saying the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the murder of two foreigners and a bombing of a Shia procession in Bangladesh.The Bangladesh government has ruled out the IS involvement in both the murders and the bombing.
SITE claimed in a statement, that the claims had been ‘authenticated and found credible after rigorous verification’.
“All of the aforementioned claims were also featured in numerous IS media channels, including Telegram Messenger and the group’s publicly available al-Bayan reports,” it says.
The monitoring group also said that the claims can be found in a ‘pro-ISIS Bengali blog’.
Italian aid worker Cesare Tavella was shot dead in Dhaka on Sep 28 while Japanese national Kunio Hoshi was killed in a similar way in the northern district of Rangpur on Oct 3.
SITE reported that IS had claimed responsibility for the murders.
After the Oct 24 bombings at a Shia Muslim gathering in Old Dhaka, which left one dead and dozens injured, SITE reported IS was claiming responsibility for the bombing.
The Bangladesh government has been maintaining that they have found no evidence of the radical group’s involvement in the three incidents.
A US State Department spokesperson said on Wednesday that they were not sure of IS presence in Bangladesh.
Indian intelligence has also ruled out Islamic State involvement in these incidents.
SITE said in its statement that the ‘denials’ and ‘attempts to defame’ it would “not change the fact that IS did claim responsibility”.
“It would serve the Bangladesh government much better to face the truth and focus its aggression on its real enemy, ISIS, rather than on those who warn about it,” it reads.
