Bangladesh says Islamic State not involved in bakery massacre

The jihadists who slaughtered 20 hostages at a Dhaka restaurant were members of a homegrown Bangladeshi militant outfit and not followers of the Islamic State group, a senior minister said Sunday.

“They are members of the Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP, referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade.

“They have no connections with the Islamic State.”

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages and two police officers during an 11-hour siege that ended on Saturday but the government has consistently denied that international jihadist groups are operating in Bangladesh.

The Islamic State group had said it targeted the citizens of “Crusader countries” in the attack, warning that citizens of such countries would not be safe “as long as their warplanes kill Muslims.”

The statement was circulated Friday by IS supporters on the Telegram messaging service and resembled previous statements by IS. It was not immediately clear if its leadership in Syria and Iraq was involved in planning the attack. The Amaq news agency, affiliated with IS, also posted photos purportedly showing hostages’ bodies, though the authenticity of the images could not be confirmed.

The 20 hostages killed included nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis and one Indian, government sources said, as details of the bloodshed began trickling from other capitals worldwide. The White House confirmed Saturday that a US citizen was among the hostages killed, but did not release any further identification.

Two Bangladeshi police officers also died from injuries sustained while exchanging gunfire with the attackers Friday night.

Police have released the names and photos of six of the attackers who were shot at the end of the siege. A seventh was arrested and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.

Khan said that all of the attackers were well-educated and most came from wealthy families.

“They are all highly educated young men and went to university. No one is from a madrassa,” the minister said.

Asked why they would have become Islamist militants, Khan said: “It has become a fashion.”

Retired Lebanese Gen. Elias Hanna, who instructs political science at the American University of Beirut, said the decision by Islamic State militants to quickly — and emphatically — claim the Bangladesh restaurant attack and broadcast the attackers’ photos reflects the competition they have with al-Qaeda to be the world’s premier jihadi group.

“Zawahiri is stationed in that area, so this is competition,” referring to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, who is believed to be based in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

In other areas, Hanna said IS has an interest in restraint. The group is widely thought to have directed last week’s deadly attack on Istanbul’s international airport, but has not claimed responsibility. Hanna says “the punishment will be harsher” in Turkey for whoever directed the airport attack.

The dramatic, 10-hour hostage crisis that gripped Bangladesh’s diplomatic zone ended Saturday morning, as commandos raided the popular restaurant where heavily armed attackers were holding dozens of foreigners and Bangladeshis prisoner while hurling bombs and engaging in a gunbattle with security forces.

The attack marked an escalation in militant violence that has hit the traditionally moderate Muslim-majority nation with increasing frequency in recent months, with the extremists demanding the secular government set up Islamic rule. Most previous attacks have involved machete-wielding men singling out individual activists, foreigners and religious minorities.

But Friday night’s attack was different, more coordinated, with the attackers brandishing assault rifles as they shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) and stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s Gulshan area while dozens of foreigners and Bangladeshis were dining out during the Ramadan holy month.

The gunmen, initially firing blanks, ordered restaurant workers to switch off the lights, and they draped black cloths over closed-circuit cameras, according to a survivor, who spoke with local TV channel ATN News. He and others, including kitchen staff, managed to escape by running to the rooftop or out the back door.

But about 35 were trapped inside, their fate depending on whether they could prove themselves to be Muslims, according to the father of a Bangladeshi businessman who was rescued Saturday morning along with his family.

“The gunmen asked everyone inside to recite from the Quran,” the Islamic holy book, according to Rezaul Karim, describing what his son, Hasnat, had witnessed inside. “Those who recited were spared. The gunmen even gave them meals last night.”

The others, he said, “were tortured.”

Detectives were questioning his son and his family along with other survivors as part of the investigation on Saturday, as scattered details of the siege emerged. Authorities were also interrogating one of the attackers captured by commandos in the dramatic morning rescue.

It was not immediately clear whether the attackers had a specific goal, and Bangladesh authorities would not say if they had made any demands.

On Saturday, Amaq published photos of five smiling young men each holding what appear to be assault rifles and posing in front of a black IS flags whom the agency identified as the attackers, according to the SITE Intelligence Service, which monitors jihadi online activity. They were identified by noms de guerre indicating they were all Bangladeshis. Amaq said the fighters used “knives, cleavers, assault rifles and hand grenades.”

Amaq said the attackers “verified” the identities of the hostages, sparing the Muslims and killing the foreigners.