Dhaka – Two months after the deadly terrorist attack on a restaurant in Dhaka, the investigators have identified an explosive expert who provided bombs to the attackers for the July 1 assault, police said.

The explosive expert was identified as Sohel Mahfuz, said Monirul Islam, chief of Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit, told reporters in Dhaka on Friday.

Mahfuz had played an important role in the attacks that left at least 20 civilians, 17 of whom are foreign nationals, at Holey Artisan Bakery in Gulshan diplomatic area, said Islam.

Two police officers were killed when the countered the attackers who had taken the guests hostage on the night of July 1 and hacked and shot 20 of them to dead.

Five militants – Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz, Meer Saameh Mubasheer, Khairul Islam Payel and Shafiqul Islam Uzzal – were killed as the army commandos stormed the cafe on the following morning.

A staff member of the cafe, Saiful Islam, was also killed during the operation.

Nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, one Indian and one Bangladesh-born US citizen were killed by the militants who claimed to be the members of the Islamic State, a radical Islamist group controlling swathe of Iraq and Syria.

Bangladeshi investigators killed nine militants when they raided a den in Dhaka’s Kalyanpur area on July 26. Three more terrorists, including one of the masterminds of the attacks Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, were killed in another raid in Narayanganj late last month.

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