DAHAKA: Bangladesh police came under grenade attack when they raided two suspected Islamist extremist hideouts on Wednesday, days after a major anti-militant drive in which 10 people were killed.
Police said counter-terrorism officers raided two houses in Moulvibazar district in the northeast after receiving a tip-off that extremists were sheltering there.
A stand-off ensued, with those inside the houses throwing grenades, local police chief Rashedul Islam told AFP.
“In one of the houses, we suspect there are eight to nine of them,” he said, adding the houses were owned by a Bangladeshi-origin British citizen.
The raids came after army commandos stormed a five-story building in the nearby city of Sylhet, triggering a violent three-day stand-off.
At least four extremists died and another six people including two police officers were killed when two bombs went off on Saturday near a crowd watching the operation.
The Daesh group claimed the twin bomb attacks but the government has rejected the claim, instead blaming a banned homegrown Islamist organization.
There has been a resurgence of extremist attacks in recent weeks in the Muslim-majority nation of 160 million after a relative lull since five IS-linked gunmen killed 22 people including 18 foreign hostages at a Dhaka cafe on July 1.
IS has also claimed at least two of three other incidents this month in which attackers blew themselves at security checkpoints, including one targeting an elite security force tasked with tackling Islamist militancy.
Analysts say Islamist militants pose a growing danger in conservative Bangladesh, where a long-running political crisis has radicalized opponents of the government.
Bangladesh prides itself on being a mainly moderate Muslim country. But that perception has been damaged by a series of gruesome killings of atheist bloggers, foreigners and religious minorities.
Since the cafe attack, security forces have launched a nationwide crackdown on Islamist extremist groups, killing around 60 suspected militants.
These include the founders of a new faction of the banned Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh, which has been blamed by authorities for most attacks.
Grenade attack as Bangladesh police raid Islamist hideout
Grenade attack as Bangladesh police raid Islamist hideout
Trump calls for one year cap on credit card interest rates at 10 percent
- Trump says Americans have been ‘ripped off’ by credit card companies
- Lawmakers from both parties have raised concerns about rates
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday he was calling for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10 percent starting on January 20 but he did not provide details on how his plan will come to fruition or how he planned to make companies comply.
Trump also made the pledge during the campaign for the 2024 election that he won but analysts dismissed it at the time saying that such a step required congressional approval.
Lawmakers from both the Democratic and Republican Parties have raised concerns about high rates and have called for those to be addressed. Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
There have been some legislative efforts in Congress to pursue such a proposal but they are yet to become law and in his post Trump did not offer explicit support to any specific bill.
Opposition lawmakers have criticized Trump, a Republican, for not having delivered on his campaign pledge.
“Effective January 20, 2026, I, as President of the United States, am calling for a one year cap on Credit Card Interest Rates of 10 percent,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, without providing more details.
“Please be informed that we will no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies,” Trump added.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on details of the call from Trump, but said on social media without elaborating that the president was capping the rates.
Some major US banks and credit card issuers like American Express, Capital One Financial Corp, JPMorgan , Citigroup and Bank of America did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US Senator Bernie Sanders, a fierce Trump critic, and Senator Josh Hawley, who belongs to Trump’s Republican Party, have previously introduced bipartisan legislation aimed at capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent for five years. This bill explicitly directs credit card companies to limit rates as part of broader consumer relief legislation.
Democratic US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna have also introduced a House of Representatives bill to cap credit card interest rates at 10 percent, reflecting cross-aisle interest in addressing high rates.
Billionaire fund manager Bill Ackman, who endorsed Trump in the last elections, said the US president’s call was a “mistake.”
“This is a mistake,” Ackman wrote on X.
“Without being able to charge rates adequate enough to cover losses and earn an adequate return on equity, credit card lenders will cancel cards for millions of consumers who will have to turn to loan sharks for credit at rates higher than and on terms inferior to what they previously paid.”
Last year, the Trump administration moved to scrap a credit card late fee rule from the era of former President Joe Biden.
The Trump administration had asked a federal court to throw out a regulation capping credit card late fees at $8, saying it agreed with business and banking groups that alleged the rule was illegal. A federal judge subsequently threw out the rule.
