Home-grown terror, no ISIS role: Dhaka

BSF put on high alert all along India-Bangla border

Bangladesh on Sunday blamed “home-grown” Islamist terrorists and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency for Friday night’s attack on an upscale restaurant in Dhaka, the country’s worst act of terror, in which 20 hostages were hacked to death. It clearly ruled out any involvement of the Islamic State.

“Let me clear it again, there are no ISIS or Al Qaeda presence or existence in Bangladesh... The hostage-takers were all home-grown terrorists, not members of ISIS or any other international Islamist outfits,” Bangladesh home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said. “We know them (hostage-takers) along with their ancestors, they all grew up here in Bangladesh... They belong to home-grown outfits like JMB (Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh),” he added.

The Islamic State had claimed responsibility for the killing of the hostages, mostly foreigners, and two police officers in the 12-hour siege that ended Saturday after the Army stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery that was popular with expats in the diplomatic zone here, killing six attackers and capturing one alive.

[A high alert has, meanwhile, been sounded on the India-Bangladesh border in the five states of West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam and Mizoram after the terror attack in Dhaka, with the Border Security Force stepping up its vigil. India and Bangladesh share a 4,096 km-long international border, the fifth-longest land border in the world. In Kolkata, the West Bengal government directed the state police to be on high alert and take serious note of any suspicious movement in border districts.]

Hossain Toufique Imam, political adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said the way the hostages were killed with machetes suggests the role of a local terrorist group, the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen. “Pakistan’s ISI and Jamaat connection is well known. They want to derail the current government,” Mr Imam told a TV channel.

The arrested terrorist had chickened out at the last minute and he holds the key to crucial details, he said. Two teams of CID investigators and a bomb disposal squad visited the Spanish restaurant on Sunday to collect evidence after Bangladesh’s worst terror attack.

A police source was quoted as saying by Dhaka Tribune that all the attackers were Bangladeshi nationals aged between 20 and 28. The police said the attackers were well-educated and most came from rich families. “All of them were students and communicated at the crime scene in both Bengali and English,” the police source said.

Police chief A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said five of the dead gunmen were listed as militants and the police had been looking for them. The police identified them as Akash, Bikash, Don, Bandhon, and Ripon.

The hostages who were killed include 19-year-old Indian girl Tarishi Jain. Nine Italians, seven Japanese, one American of Bangladeshi origin and two Bangladeshis were among the people who were killed. Most of those killed were found with their throats slit.

Sheikh Hasina vowed to trace the “roots” of the culprits who supplied the weapons and explosives to the terrorists. Her remarks came during a meeting with Japan’s state minister of foreign affairs Seiji Kihara at her official residence Ganabhaban.

Among those rescued were Indian, Sri Lankan and Japanese nationals, media reports said. Around 30 people were injured.

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. “All our achievements will go in vain if we cannot ensure security and eliminate militancy. Let us come forward, unite, forgetting all our differences,” she said on Sunday.

The government has consistently ruled out the presence of ISIS in the Muslim-majority nation though experts have said a series of brutal attacks on minorities and secular activists had the hallmarks of the Islamic State.

The police released the photos of the six gunmen killed in the raid by commandos. A seventh was arrested and is being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.

Bangladeshi media reports said that after US-based SITE Intelligence Group published photos of five gunmen with assault rifles who, the Islamic State claims, killed the hostages, former classmates have started identifying by posting their old pictures on the social media.

Warning “crusader countries” that their citizens would not be safe “as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims”, ISIS also posted pictures of four fighters, who it said were involved in the attack, smiling in front of a black flag of the outfit.

According to the reports, three of the five attackers have so far been identified by their friends.

The gunmen did a background check on religion of the captives by asking them to recite Quranic verses and tortured those who could not do so.

Announcing a two-day state mourning for those killed in the worst terror attack in the country, Sheikh Hasina said her government would do everything to eliminate terror from the country and asked extremists to stop killing in the name of religion. A huge number of people joined the mourning wearing black badges or posting black badges on their social media accounts, including Facebook.

Sheikh Hasina will also pay her respects to the victims of the attack at Gulshan cafe in a ceremony on Monday. The ceremony will be held at the Army Stadium here.