Dhaka - Human Rights Watch asked Bangladesh Saturday to stop the deaths in custody of suspected mutineers, as reports that 16 soldiers died in detention since a bloody uprising at the Dhaka headquarters of Bangladesh's border guards. "The Bangladesh government should protect detainees suspected of involvement in a February massacre of army officers from being killed or mistreated," the New-York-based rights watchdog said in a statement.

Dhaka  - Authorities in Bangladesh have asked intelligence agencies to closely monitor activities of 12 suspected militant outfits running so-called Islamic activities in the predominately Muslim South Asian country, media reports said Saturday.

"The government has kept watchful eyes on the activities of the 12 organizations listed as terrorist outfits by the immediate-past interim administration," State Minister for Home Affairs Tanjim Ahmed Sohel Taj told a private television channel.

Dhaka - Activities at Bangladesh's prime Chittagong port resumed Friday after the authorities dredged up the Karnaphuli channel blocked by a vessel that sank on Tuesday, officials said.

"Movements of ships between the port and the outer anchorage resumed in the morning after the channel was deepened and widened through dredging," an official at the Chittagong Port Authority said.

Dhaka  - Bangladesh is to form a high-level anti-terrorism committee to both tackle the threat of attacks and educate the public about possible dangers, the government announced on Wednesday.

The body - to be headed by Home Affairs Minister Tanjim Ahmed Sohel Taj - will also attempt to counter propaganda from radical Islamist groups, and boost intelligence operations and surveillance.

Bangladesh's Awami League-led coalition government pin-pointed poverty and ignorance as key breeding grounds for Islamist militants in the mainly Muslim country.

Dhaka  - Movements of ships at Bangladesh's prime Chittagong sea port were suspended Wednesday after a lighter vessel sunk in the Karnaphuli channel late Tuesday night, officials said.

More than 40 ships remained stranded at the outer anchorage while five others remained stuck at the port after the clinker-laden vessel, caught up in a stormy weather, capsized in the channel.

"We have made preparations to remove the vessel from the channel, but the rescue operation is yet to begin," Fariduddin Ahmed, the secretary of the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA), said.

Dhaka - Wild elephants trampled to death three people, including two children, in far south-eastern Bangladesh as they were collecting firewood, media reports said Wednesday.

They were trampled Tuesday at Teknaf hill near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, 374 kilometres south-east of the capital, Dhaka.

Two of the victims died on the spot when the elephants crushed them after knocking down while the third victim succumbed to her injuries at a nearby health complex, said Yunus Sheikh, a vice chairman of the Teknaf subdistrict.