Attackers take hostages in Dhaka – One confirmed death in Bangladesh

This news has been read 5706 times!

People help an unidentified injured person after a group of gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with foreigners in a diplomatic zone of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, Bangladesh on July 1. A group of gunmen took hostages and exchanged gunfire with security forces, Friday. (AP)
People help an unidentified injured person after a group of gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with foreigners in a diplomatic zone of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, Bangladesh on July 1. A group of gunmen took hostages and exchanged gunfire with security forces, Friday. (AP)

DHAKA, July 1, (Agencies): Gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with expatriates in the diplomatic quarter of the Bangladeshi capital on Friday and took hostages, including several foreigners, police said. Eight to nine gunmen attacked the Holey Artisan restaurant in the upscale Gulshan area of Dhaka, and police were preparing to start an operation to rescue the hostages, said Benjir Ahmed, the chief of Bangladesh’s special police force.

CNN said 20 people were being held in the restaurant. Ahmed said the assailants had hurled bombs at police. One policeman was dead and two others wounded by gunfire that erupted as they surrounded the restaurant, police said. A resident near the scene of the attack said he could hear sporadic gunfire nearly three hours after the attack began. “It is chaos out there. The streets are blocked. There are dozens of police commandos,” said Tarique Mir.

The head of the elite anti-crime force, Rapid Action Battalion, or RAB, told reporters Friday night that they were working to save the lives of the people trapped inside the Holey Artisan Bakery. Some foreigners are believed to be among the hostages. “Some derailed youths have entered the restaurant and launched the attack,” Benazir Ahmed said. “We have talked to some of the people who fled the restaurant after the attack. We want to resolve this peacefully. We are trying to talk to the attackers, we want to listen to them about what they want.”

A huge contingent of security guards cordoned off the area around the restaurant, trading gunfire with the attackers who set off bombs and exchanged gunfire with the security forces. “Some of our people have been injured. Our first priority is to save the lives of the people trapped inside,” Ahmed said.

He would not say how many people were trapped inside. Sumon Reza, a kitchen staffer who escaped the attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s Gulshan area, told reporters that the attackers were armed with firearms and bombs as they entered the restaurant around 9:20 pm Friday and took customers and staffers hostage at gunpoint. Jamuna Television, quoting Reza, said the attackers chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) as they launched the attack.

Bangladesh, a traditionally moderate Muslim-majority nation, has recently seen an upsurge in militant violence. Nearly two dozen atheist writers, publishers, members of religious minorities, social activists and foreign aid workers have been slain since 2013 by attackers.

The frequency of attacks has increased in recent months. On Friday, a Hindu temple worker was hacked to death by at least three assailants in southwest Bangladesh. The attacks have raised fears that religious extremists are gaining a foothold in the country, despite its traditions of secularism and tolerance. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government has cracked down on domestic radical Islamists. It has accused local terrorists and opposition political parties — especially the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its Islamist ally Jamaat-e-Islami — of orchestrating the violence in order to destabilize the nation, which both parties deny.

The Islamic State group and al-Qaeda affiliates have claimed responsibility for many of the attacks but the government denies that either group has a presence in the country. President Barack Obama has been briefed about the attack on a restaurant in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Friday, the White House said. “The president asked to be kept informed as the situation develops,” a White House official said.

The US State Department said on Friday it had accounted for all diplomatic staff at its mission in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka following an attack by gunmen on a restaurant in the city’s diplomatic quarter. Spokesman John Kirby, however, could not confirm whether private US citizens were caught up in a “hostage situation.” It was too early to say who was behind the attack or the motivation of the attackers.

“We have accounted for all Americans working for the chief of mission authority” in Dhaka, Kirby told a press briefing. He said the situation was “very fluid, very live.” Later he added: “We’re still accounting for private Americans.” Benjir Ahmed, the chief of Bangladesh’s special police, said several foreigners were among a number of people taken hostage in the restaurant, which is located in a suburb frequented Euro/KD 0.33409 by foreigners and diplomats.

This news has been read 5706 times!

Related Articles

Back to top button

Advt Blocker Detected

Kindly disable the Ad blocker

Verified by MonsterInsights