Gowher Rizvi, an adviser on foreign affairs to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said police continued to believe that local groups were behind the militant attacks, and initial indications are that the restaurant siege was also orchestrated by homegrown militants. The editorial also criticizes authorities’ consistent denial of the presence of any worldwide terrorist groups, even as the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack and released gruesome photographs that apparently depicted the torture of hostages.
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Three of the six gunmen killed were younger than 22 and had been missing for six months, Asaduzzaman Khan said in an interview.
Bangladesh’s prime minister visited a stadium Monday where the bodies of three of the 20 victims were taken after a weekend attack in the capital, while security officials questioned some of those who had been rescued as they searched for information on the possible masterminds.
In Bangladesh, police on Sunday were blocking all access to streets near the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s Gulshan, where heavily armed attackers holed up overnight on Friday, torturing and killing some of their captives including nine Italians, seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, one Indian and a USA citizen.
But Shahedul Anam Khan, an analyst for the Dhaka-based Daily Star, said the attack meant the government could no longer plausibly deny that global extremists groups were active in Bangladesh.
He once again refuted the possibility that the Islamic State could have been behind the attack, despite the group claiming responsibility on Saturday and releasing horrifying photographs of what unfolded overnight on Friday. “They belong to home-grown outfits like JMB (Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh)”, he added.
The government insists the group has no presence in the country, instead blaming local groups.
Posts on Facebook identified the men, pictured on an Islamic State website grinning in front of a black flag, as Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz, Meer Saameh Mubasheer, Andaleeb Ahmed and Raiyan Minhaj.
“Anyone who believes in religion can not do such an act”, Ms Hasina said on Saturday. “This type of situation is a first in Bangladesh, until now they were committing individual murders”.
Bangladesh Nationalist Party chief Khaleda Zia has called the Gulshan cafe attack a “cowardly act” and urged for national unity to rid Bangladesh from militancy.
Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida met the families before they left and promised them the government’s utmost support.
Of those killed, 18 were foreigners-Nine Italians, seven Japanese, one American of Bangladeshi-origin and an Indian, 19-year-old Tarishi Jain. In addition to the hostages, two police officers lost their lives while storming the cafe and ending the siege.
Operation Thunderbolt successfully managed to neutralise six of the militants and capture the seventh alive. “They are from rich families, they have good educational background”, the minister told news agency Associated Press.
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But Friday’s attack signalled a more chilling threat to foreigners. A United States citizen and a 19-year-old Indian who was studying in California were also among the dead.
