Suicide bomber on bike kills six
Civilians targeted in Bangladesh
NETROKONA, Bangladesh -- A suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up on a crowded street yesterday, killing six people and wounding dozens in the latest attack authorities blame on extremists who want to create an Islamic state in Bangladesh.
Among the wounded was another bomber who police said did not detonate his explosives.
The suicide blast occurred when hundreds of people had gathered on a narrow street in the northern town of Netrokona after police safely detonated another bomb found in a building.
There was no claim of responsibility, but officials blamed the attack on Jumatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, a banned Islamic group believed to be behind a wave of blasts that have killed 21 people in the past two weeks.
A police officer at the scene, Ali Hossain Faquir, said a handwritten leaflet warning police to follow Islamic law and stop protecting ''man-made" laws was found near the site, about 80 miles north of the capital, Dhaka.
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who was visiting Saudi Arabia, expressed shock. ''The masterminds behind the conspiracy have to be silenced with all our might," the United News of Bangladesh quoted Zia as saying.
A home ministry spokesman, Khondakar Monirul Alam, said yesterday's bombing was the work of those who committed the earlier attacks, but he didn't name any groups. The previous attacks largely targeted government offices and courts, and Alam told reporters in Dhaka the attackers have ''adopted a new tactic, and targeted innocent people."
The suspected second bomber was under guard in a hospital.
A police explosives specialist said the device that was safely detonated was ''a small, not powerful bomb."
''It was probably used as a decoy to attract people," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the investigation. 
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