The government has repeatedly denied worldwide jihadist networks have a presence in Bangladesh, though the IS-linked news agency Amaq published extensive details of Friday’s attack, including photos from inside the cafe.
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Bangladesh’s home minister said Sunday the seven attackers, six of whom were killed, had absolutely no connection with Islamic State.
Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida spoke by phone on Monday about coordinating their governments’ diplomatic and intelligence efforts against terrorism, the Italian foreign ministry said.
Meanwhile, the bodies of the nine Italian victims were flown to Rome on Tuesday.
A Bangladeshi soldier controls local residents as they pour in to pay their respects to the victims of the attack on Holey Artisan Bakery, at a stadium in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, July 4, 2016.
Witnesses say the perpetrators of the attack, which the Islamic State (ISIS) group has claimed, spared the lives of Muslims while herding foreigners to their deaths, killing many with machete-style weapons.
The five men (seven in all, including one terrorist now hospitalized and another one not yet identified) who assaulted the cafè shouting “Allah is great” in Gulshan district, in the heart of country’s capital, were identified after the Islamic State released photo of the five gunmen. A case has been registered against five.
Another attacker, identified by police as “Bikash”, is also reportedly from Bogra. Khan though said he was only a suspect, adding that.
Three of them hailed from wealthy families and studied in posh schools and universities at home and overseas while the rest two came from a rural background and poorer families. “The sixth man was a restaurant employee”, Saiful Islam, a top Bangladesh police official told Reuters. The man’s friends and police said that one of the attackers was a student in the same department at the university where the man teaches. “I hope they’ll understand the reality”, he said. Prime Minister Hasina’s government has blamed a string of attacks in the country on her political foes, saying they back militant groups in the country in an attempt to create chaos.
Six of the attackers were killed in a gunfight with the commandos while the seventh was captured alive.
Friends of one confirmed his identity as 22-year-old Nibras Islam who had been studying at the Malaysian campus of Australia’s Monash University before going missing in January.
Just days after the attack claimed by its rival jihadi movement Islamic State, a regional branch of al Qaeda urged Muslims in India to revolt and carry out lone wolf attacks.
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According to Hoque, those who criticize the security service for slow counterterrorism action should know that hostages were killed in the first 20 minutes of the attack, before the police stormed the building.
