Bangladeshi forces kill two suspected militants linked to café attacks

Bangladesh security forces on Monday killed at least two people suspected of belonging to an Islamist militant group behind a deadly cafe attack in Dhaka in 2016, police said after a raid at a tin-shed hideout in the capital.

Anti-crime elite force RAB early Monday cordoned off a tin-shed house in capital Dhaka's Bosila area, where militants were suspected of being holed up.

Several explosions took place at the house after the members of RAB cordoned off the house, RAB spokesman Mufti Mahmud Khan, director of the legal and media wing of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), told journalists.

The militants were suspected members of Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, a home-grown militant group that killed 22 people in the cafe attack.

"When our forces knocked on the door, the residents of the house fired at our people instead of opening it," Khan, told reporters.

"Then members of the RAB responded. There is still a huge amount of explosives and our special forces are trying to remove it."

Khan said three people, including the owner of the house, had been detained for questioning.

Authorities have imposed a restriction on movement of vehicles and pedestrians around the terror hideout which is now under siege by the security forces.

Bangladesh launched a crackdown on militancy after the cafe attack as part of what Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina calls a "zero tolerance" policy.

Militants attacked the cafe in July 2016, taking 22 hostages, mostly foreigners, who were killed over 12 hours.

Since the cafe attack, Bangladeshi police have conducted a series of large-scale operations against militants.