Just in case you hadn’t heard, and that seems very likely, there was a bloody suicide bombing today in Bangladesh. It should not be a surprise that apparently radical Islamists are to blame.
At least seven people were killed and more than 50 wounded in Bangladesh on Thursday in a suicide bomb attack during the morning rush hour on a crowded street in a district town, police said.
Two bombs went off within the space of a few minutes in Netrokona, 360 km (220 miles) north of the capital Dhaka.
Police said the wounded included three policemen. Many of the victims were people on their way to work at offices, colleges and markets, witnesses said.
No one claimed responsibility for the blasts, but police blamed Islamist suicide bombers fighting for the introduction of sharia law in the mainly Muslim democracy.
Police said they found a suicide bomber among the wounded, with an unexploded bomb strapped to his body. He was taken to hospital unconscious, police added.
Another suicide bomber was believed to be among the dead.
“Two of the dead, including a woman, have been identified, but identities of the rest are yet to be ascertained,” one police officer said.
“We have reasons to believe that one among the dead was a suicide bomber, who arrived on the spot on a bicycle just moments before the blast,” he added.
The bombs exploded near the local office of a cultural organization, Udichi, which police believe was the target. At least one member of the group was among the dead, said a police officer.
Ten people were killed and over 50 were injured when a bomb exploded at an open-air concert of Udichi in western Jessore town in March 1999.
Many Islamic groups dislike Udichi, which organizes open-air shows of drama, music and poetry recitals. It pursues a strong secular philosophy.
Thursday’s deaths took the number of people killed by suspected suicide bombers to 25 in three weeks, including judges, lawyers and policemen.
Bangladesh has been hit by a wave of bomb attacks since August by militants of banned groups, including the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, which seeks to turn mainly Muslim Bangladesh into a sharia-based Islamic state.
Secular, not anti-Islamic but secular, entertainment is a worthy target that must be destroyed in the eyes of the Islamists. The radicals of the religion comprise a global virus, seemingly unable to live peacably in any place on the globe where they find themselves in sizable numbers but unable to behead and stone at will.