Dhaka Arrests Activists After Cinema Deaths

Bangladesh has arrested dozens of opposition activists after bombs were detonated in cinemas in a northern town, killing 17 people and wounding 300, police said on Sunday.

The four cinemas in Mymenshingh 95 miles north of the capital, Dhaka, were packed with nearly 2,000 people on Saturday, the last day of Eid al-Fitr, when the bombs exploded. Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, is one of the most important celebrations of the year in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

Police say they do not know who was responsible for the explosions, which took place within minutes of each other.

Bangladesh's prime minister, Khaleda Zia, who visited the town on Sunday, said: "The planning of these simultaneous bomb attacks may look like the work of a well-organised terrorist group such as al-Qaeda, but in fact this is not their handiwork." The prime minister's dismissal of any al-Qaeda involvement may not convince India. Ministers in New Delhi have long argued that a cell of the terror group could be operating in Bangladesh, and that an aide of Osama bin Laden has taken refuge there.

The government has defended itself against the allegations, and last month arrested two journalists from the UK's Channel 4, who it says entered Bangladesh without correct visas to make a TV documentary on Islamic extremism.

Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, interior minister, on Sunday ruled out al-Qaeda involvement in the cinema blasts, after earlier suggesting it might have been responsible.

Indian officials said last week they intended to send more troops to patrol their border with Bangladesh in response to what they said was credible information that Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda and Afghanistan's ousted Taliban had appeared in Bangladesh in recent months.

While Bangladesh has strongly denied the Indian claims, a secret analysis of the links between Bangladeshi Islamists and groups affiliated to al-Qaeda compiled by one south-east Asian intelligence service last month and seen by the Financial Times said that the groups had joined together in 1999 as the League of Mujahideens or Rabitatul Mujahideen (RM).

The RM is said by a captured member to include groups in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Burma and elsewhere, and to be working in collaboration with the south-east Asian Jemaah Islamiah group.