The suicide bomber kept in the intensive care unit at Chittagong Medical College and Hospital (CMCH) became clinically dead in the early morning. The physicians declared him dead after the life supporting equipment was withdrawn at 12:20pm, hospital sources said.

His body was sent to the CMCH morgue for autopsy.

Hossain was admitted to CMCH with both the legs and one hand completely blown off.

On Wednesday, he made confessions to police and intelligence agencies after regaining consciousness, giving important information about the banned Islamist outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and its activities.

The investigators considered the death of Hossain a loss to the probe into the ghastly bomb attack that left two including a police constable dead.

"We desperately wanted to keep him alive," said Assistant Commissioner of Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) Detective Branch (DB) KM Mosharraf Hossain Mianjee. "The police personnel here did not hesitate to donate more than twenty bags of blood for him," he added.

Meanwhile, the condition of constables Prakash and Sriman, who were flown to Dhaka for better treatment after suffering severe injuries in the Chittagong suicide blast, was improving, sources said.

HUNT FOR MILITANTS LAUNCHED
The CMP and district police on Wednesday night launched a combing operation in the city and district to net JMB cadres, particularly three named Mohammad, Mizan and Mehedi, following a meeting with the deputy inspector general of Chittagong police.

All the JMB cadres arrested in connection with the October 3 and November 29 bomb attacks on the Chittagong Court Building premises named the three as the key JMB operatives in Chittagong and Cox's Bazar.

According to their confessions, Mohammad was in charge of Chittagong district while Mizan and Mehedi were responsible for making and providing the bombers with explosives.

AFGHAN-BACK GUERRILLA NOT SHOWN ARRESTED
Meanwhile, Joynal Abedin Kutubi, the suspected veteran of Afghan war held Tuesday from his residence in the city's Bakalia area, was not yet shown arrested.

"We are still quizzing Kutubi to extract information about his suspected involvement with militant activities and his stay in Afghanistan for militant training," Senior Assistant Commissioner of DB Mosharraf Hossain Meazi told this correspondent yesterday afternoon.

Tight-lipped about their findings from Kutubi, the DB only said he has denied being trained up in Afghanistan.

However, Kutubi's elder brother M Shahjahan told journalists that Kutubi was in Afghanistan in 2002 to "fight for the cause of Islam and against its enemies."