Dhaka: Inspector General of Police (IGP) AKM Shahidul Hoque said the suspected militants, killed in a crackdown at a hideout in Dhaka’s Kalyanpur, were wearing black robes and Islamic turbans while they were holding knives on their hands.

The IGP during a briefing with the reporters on Tuesday morning said the suspected all 10 were members of the homegrown extremist group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), which was blamed for the Dhaka cafe attack.

Shahidul Hoque stressed that the nine killed in Tuesday’s operation had no connection with Islamic State jihadists even though they were wearing the group’s signature black robes and Islamic turbans.

‘We think they are all JMB members ... We have not found any link with IS. They are all local Bangladeshi militants,’ he said.

Hoque added that they had rented a fouth-floor flat and were planning to launch a large-scale attack.

‘From police intelligence sources we learnt that they were planning to carry out a major incident. We conducted the operation to foil any such incident,’ he said.

Police said they cordoned off an apartment building after suspects threw a small hand bomb at officers who were conducting a ‘block raid’ in the area after midnight.

The Islamist gunmen exchanged fire intermittently throughout the night and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ as the neighbourhood was sealed off by hundreds of heavily armed police and the elite security force Rapid Action Battalion.

‘Their dress and their slogans before and after the attack all proved that they are members of (Islamist) militant force,’ said police.

In the early hours of Tuesday, nine suspected Islamist extremists were killed in a raid after the law enforcers were storming a hideout where they said a new mass attack was being planned.