Security was tightened in capital of Bangladesh on Thursday after militants attacked a police post guarding the country’s biggest festival marking the end of Ramadan, killing three people and wounding 14.
At least five militants attacked a police post in Kishoreganj, a town about 140 km (90 miles) from Dhaka, with small bombs and then set upon police with “sharp weapons”, said chief district administrator Mohammad Azimuddin Biswas.
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Up to 300,000 people had gathered for a prayer service to mark the Eid al-Fitr festival in the town at the time of the violence, nearly a week after militants killed 20 people in an attack on a cafe in Dhaka claimed by Islamic State.
One policeman was killed in a blast and another was stabbed to death. A civilian woman was also killed.
Two attackers were killed and three were arrested, officials said. It was not immediately clear what group they belonged to.
The assault is the latest in a surge in militant violence in the South Asian, majority-Muslim nation of 160 million.
Related: Bangladesh is being urged to confront its Islamic State problem
Last Friday, five young militants killed 20 people, most of them foreigners, in an attack on a cafe in the capital, later claimed by Islamic State.
It was one of the deadliest attacks ever in Bangladesh, where al Qaeda and Islamic State have made competing claims for a series of killings of liberals and members of religious minorities in the past year.
In contrast with a prevailing narrative that radicalized youth who commit acts of terrorism in the name of an extremist, fundamentalist reading of Islam are from poor backgrounds, some of the Dhaka attackers were privileged young men.
