Bangladesh hostage crisis: At least 2 killed as ISIS gunmen storm capital's diplomatic quarter
RT,
1
July, 2016
Islamic
state has claimed responsibility for the attack on a restaurant in
the diplomatic quarter of the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka on Friday.
At least two policemen have reportedly died, and dozens of people are
being held hostage.
Four
police officers have died, while the gunmen are holding approximately
40 hostages, including at least one Westerner, NBC News reported,
citing Assistant Superintendent Fazle-e-Elahi. According to
local media, two officers have been killed.
Islamic
State has claimed responsibility for the attack, Reuters said, citing
the terrorist group’s propaganda website Amaq. The number of
casualties, Amaq claims, stands at more than 20. However, the
information hasn’t yet been officially confirmed.
Local
police tried to establish communication with the terrorists, but
after failing they started an operation to free hostages from the
Dhaka restaurant.
Officers
said that over 100 troops are fighting the gunmen, who are firing
back, Reuters reported.
Local
TV said that at least 10 people have been rescued from the cafe,
including two foreigners.
Italian,
Japanese and Indian nationals were reportedly among the hostages.
Italy’s ambassador to Bangladesh, Mario Palma, confirmed the
reports, saying that seven Italians were inside the cafe. Meanwhile,
a Japanese government spokesman spoke about 12 people being rescued,
but did not specify if any of the Japanese nationals were among the
freed.
All
TV networks across Bangladesh have stopped live coverage at the
request of police, local media websites report.
Media
outlets have been requested not to publish the names or nationalities
of probable hostages for their safety.
“We
heard the shooting noise and blasting bombs… It is quiet now,” a
witness who lives a kilometer from the restaurant told RT.
“I’m
particularly worried about what is going to happen in the next
hours…”
the man said, adding that he doesn’t know what actions local
authorities are taking and he is concerned that if police try to
catch the attackers, it may lead to more bloodshed.
The
attack was carried out by a group of at least nine people, according
to local media. They entered the restaurant at around 9:20pm local
time and reportedly opened fire and set off explosions.
One
of the attackers was armed with a sword, the others carried guns, an
employee of a nearby café told RT. He estimated the number of
hostages as at least 30.
A
kitchen worker who managed to escape the building said the attackers
chanted “Allahu Akbar.”
“They
blasted several crude bombs, causing wide-scale panic among everyone.
I managed to flee during this confusion,” he said, according to The
Daily Star, a Bangladeshi English-language newspaper. The paper puts
the number of injuries at 30.
DhakaTribune
The
targeted area for the operation is Gulshan, a neighborhood in the
capital city of Dhaka that hosts many nongovernmental organizations
and embassies, including that of the US.
“This
is a very serious diplomatic area, there are many embassies,
including the delegation of the European Union, the French embassy,
the Dutch embassy and the Russian embassy,” Syed Ishtiak Reza, the
director of Ekattor TV, a leading satellite television channel in
Bangladesh, said in an interview with RT.
The
same-style attack took place in November 2015 when Al-Qaeda militants
attacked the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, leaving 22 civilians
dead. Five terrorists were killed as a result of a 10-hour siege.
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