Dhaka cafe siege ends: 20 civilians killed, 13 hostages freed

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Euronews:

7/2/16

 

The attack on a cafe in the Bangladeshi capital left 26 people dead including six armed attackers, the Bangladesh army said on Saturday (July 2), adding that most were killed with sharp weapons. Army Brigadier General Naim Asraf Chowdhury told a news conference 13 people were rescued, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina earlier said six gunmen had been killed and one captured alive when dozens of commandos stormed the scene, an upscale cafe in a diplomatic area of the capital.

 

The siege began on Friday night (July 1) when a group of men wielding guns, grenades and swords burst into the Holey Artisan restaurant in the Gulshan district of Dhaka, a cafe popular with expats and diplomats. A police officer at the scene said that when security forces tried to enter the building at the beginning of the siege, they met a hail of bullets and grenades.

 

At least two police were killed in the clashes, and 20 people wounded, according to security officials. The militant group calling itself Islamic State, which claimed the attack, has posted photos of what it said were dead foreigners, and said 24 people had died.

 

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[Valin]

From Bangladesh, a Profile In Courage
John Hinderaker
July 3, 2016

Details about the terrorist attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh, continue to emerge. The New York Times has this story about three friends from Atlanta’s Emory University who were in the cafe when the terrorists struck:

Early in the morning, the gunmen released a group of women wearing hijabs and offered a young Bangladeshi man, Faraz Hossain, the opportunity to leave, too, said Hishaam Hossain, Mr. Hossain’s nephew, who had heard an account from the hostages who were freed.

Mr. Hossain, a student at Emory University, was accompanied by two women wearing Western clothes, however, and when the gunmen asked the women where they were from, they said India and the United States. The gunmen refused to release them, and Mr. Hossain refused to leave them behind, his relative said. He would be among those found dead on Saturday morning.

 

 

Abinta Kabir, Faraaz Hossain and Tarsi Jain, all of whom were murdered

 

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[Valin]

After Slaughter, Bangladesh Reels at Revelations About Attackers
JULFIKAR ALI MANIK and GEETA ANAND
JULY 3, 2016

DHAKA, Bangladesh — Bangladesh’s capital city reeled in shock on Sunday as clues began to flood social media about the privileged backgrounds of the half-dozen attackers believed to have butchered 20 patrons of a restaurant during a bloody siege here late last week.

The six attackers were killed when the army stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery to end an 11-hour siege early Saturday.

The police declined to name the young men because nobody had shown up as of Sunday night to identify their bodies, but friends and relatives recognized photographs that were posted on a messaging app by the Islamic State, along with praise for the violence.

The men, all in their late teens or early 20s, were products of Bangladesh’s elite, several having attended one of the country’s top English-medium private schools as well as universities both in the country and abroad.

Among them was the son of a former city leader in the prime minister’s own Awami League, the governing party.

 

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[Valin]

Bangladesh police kill 3 linked to terrorist attack that killed 20
Associated Press
August 27, 2016

NEW DELHI — Police in Bangladesh killed three suspected militants Saturday, including an alleged mastermind of a major attack on a cafe last month that left 20 people dead. Top counterterrorism official Monirul Islam said police raided a two-story house in Narayanganj district near Dhaka and killed the suspects early Saturday.

 

The dead included Tamim Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi-born Canadian, who police believe was one of two masterminds of the attack on a popular restaurant in Dhaka. The militants belonged to the banned group Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, or JMB, Bangladesh’s police chief A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque told reporters.

 

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