A night of ordinary madness

It’s a normal evening in Dhaka’s diplomatic area, Gulshan. It’s Friday evening, the last Friday of Ramadan.

On the shore of Baridhara Lake, between Gulshan-2 and Gulshan-1, there is the popular cafeteria-pastry shop “Holey Artisan Bakery” with the adjoining restaurant “O’ Kitchen”. Many customers, especially foreigners, are having dinner in one of the favorite places of the “expat” community of Bangladesh. The same owner of the coffee shop is a Spanish national.

8:45 pm. Snaps the attack. A group of 8-10 armed Islamists bursts into the cafeteria. Some shoot with pistols and AK-32 assault machineguns, others throw grenades, others are holding long sharp blades. Stunning screams: “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!”

They take hostage the total 40 people present and entrench inside the cafeteria. Because of the neighboring embassies, the area is always heavily guarded by police, military and rapid action squads (RAB), which do not delay to flock around the area.

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The very first reports are not encouraging: 2 dead and 25 wounded among the security forces. The police is unable to fire effectively because of the foreign hostages used as human shields.

A night of fire continues, with exchanges of gunfire and sporadic grenade throwings. A security ring of 3 kilometers is created from the point of the attack. No one enters, no one leaves. At the end of the whole story will be fired around 1,000 ammunitions and exploded 100 grenades.

The owner of the coffee shop and an employee were in the upper terrace and could escape by jumping the two floors and running in the yard. They place the first witnessing talking about 20 foreign hostages, including seven Italians confirmed. Also children present.

Meanwhile, the negotiators do not get any feedback from the Islamists, who seem not to have any request. Authorities begin to call armored cars, RAB, armed assault forces, wheeled tanks, for an eventual extreme action. All the army brigades, including navy and aviation, are gathered.

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The Italian Embassy opens at night on a state of alert (because of the 7 Italians abducted) and ambassador Mario Palma releases the first statement: “From the assailants’ part there is no willingness to negotiate anything, because clearly it is a suicide mission and the above people wants to implement a very strong and bloody action where there is no room for negotiation. The Italian hostages are all entrepreneurs and traders in the clothing sector. A fellow national alerted the embassy, he was in the italian group having dinner and at the time of the assault was came out in the cafteria’s garden for making phone calls. Now at least he has been secured.”

The PM of Japan, Shinzo Abe, offers his counterterrorism support to Bangladesh. 906 Japanese are residing in the country at this time.

The US State Department says that we can not readily confirm connections between the terrorists and the ISIS, and indeed religion might not be a matter on the story. In a joint statement informed that probably no American, Australian and English citizen were involved in the attack.

At 2:30 am the official news agency of the Islamic State claims responsibility for the attack and informs that 20 foreigners will be killed.

At 6 o’clock in the morning the security forces are ready for the final blitz, now apparently unavoidable, which snaps at 7:30 AM. In a situation of total deadlock and with terrorists not interested in negotiations, it will be not an easy task.

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Already in the first minutes of the raid is testified the release of five hostages. At about 8.30 the operation reaches a point ahead, although are reported 18 hostages freed and 5 deaths, including 2 Italians confirmed. Also 7 terrorists are killed. Among the Bangladeshi hostages were present members of local high-ranking families, including the patron families of “Elegant Group”, “Transcom Group” and “Aftab Group” (commercial giants of Bangladesh).

The police does not release too many details on the situation of the Islamists, if they were all arrested or killed, neither on the actual current state of the besieged area. No verifiable details of deaths and injuries are availabel. Highly discordant details are mentioned on the national and foreign press, although are reported a total of 24 dead and 40 wounded in the entire deal. The siege lasted 12 long, endless hours.

 

Official afternoon update:

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Speaks to the press the Brigadier General Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury:

“At the end of the operations the entire cafeteria has been raked and have been found 20 bodies in total, all of them butchered by strokes of bladed weapons during the night hours of the siege. All the 20 were ‘western’.

However, 13 hostages have been saved, including 1 Japanese and 2 Sri Lankans, in addition to the Bengalis, after the commando assault.

Among the 7 Islamists, 6 were killed during the raid and one was caught alive. He will be queried.”

All the bodies were taken to the nearby military hospital for autopsies, the survivors have been conducted to different hospital of the city for proper care.

 

3rd July update:

Two Italian saved – Only two Italians escaped the attack: one is the entrepreneur Gian Galeazzo Boschetti, who was at dinner with the other murdered Italians and could save himself because he was in the garden to make a phone call, while the wife was murdered inside the cafeteria. The other is the cook Iacopo Bioni from Verona who, along with the Italian-Argentine chef Diego Rossini and other employees, at the first shot has guessed the tragedy and took refuge on the roof to give the alarm. All other nine Italians were killed by the Islamists.

Killed also 7 Japaneses, 1 Indian, 1 American and 2 Bangladeshis who were not able to recit verses from Quran.

 

Source: BD News24

The Daily Star

Prothom-Alo