Bangladesh Attack Is New Evidence That ISIS Has Shifted Its Focus Beyond the Mideast
Bangladeshi Military Confirms 20 Dead
Bangladeshi military officials and
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina spoke on Saturday about the terrorist
attack at a popular restaurant in Dhaka that left 20 hostages dead and
several injured overnight.
By INTERNATIONAL TV, ATN, REUTERS and THE ASSOCIATED
PRESS on
Publish Date July 2, 2016.
Photo by Associated Press.
Watch in Times Video »
DHAKA,
Bangladesh — The cook was crouching in a washroom, taking refuge from
the gunmen who had invaded the Holey Artisan Bakery, when he understood
that there was a logic behind the killing: The people in the restaurant
were being sorted.
“Bengali
people, come out,” one gunman shouted. When the cook, Sumir Barai, and
eight other men opened the bathroom door, trembling, they saw two young
men, clean shaven and dressed in jeans and T-shirts.
“You
don’t need to be so tense,” one of the men told them. “We will not kill
Bengalis. We will only kill foreigners.” At that, Mr. Barai’s gaze
flicked to the floor of the restaurant, where he could see six or seven
bodies, apparently shot and then sliced with machetes. All appeared to
be foreigners.
The
gunmen, he said, seemed eager to see their actions amplified on social
media: After killing the patrons, they asked the staff to turn on the
restaurant’s wireless network. Then they used customers’ telephones to
post images of the bodies on the internet.
Friday
night’s assault on the Holey Artisan Bakery in the diplomatic district
of Dhaka, in which at least 20 hostages and two police officers were
killed, marks a scaling up of ambition and capacity for Bangladesh’s Islamist militancy, which has until now carried out pinpoint assassinations, mostly of critics of Islam and members of religious minorities.
Among
the dead from Friday’s attack, the police said, were nine Italians,
seven Japanese, two Bangladeshis, one American and one Indian.
The
attack also suggests that Bangladesh’s militant networks are
internationalizing, a key concern as the United States seeks to contain
the growth of the Islamic State.
Bangladesh’s
160 million people are almost all Sunni Muslims, including a
demographic bulge under the age of 25. This makes it valuable as a
recruiting ground for the Islamic State, now under pressure in its core
territory of Iraq and Syria. Western intelligence officials have been
watching the organization pivot to missions elsewhere in the world,
launching attacks on far-flung civilian targets that are difficult to
deter with traditional military campaigns.
“We
need to take serious stock of the overall threat,” said Shafqat Munir, a
research fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security
Studies. “There were all sorts of warnings and signs and everything. But
I don’t think anyone expected anything as audacious and large-scale as
this.”
It
was a slow night at the restaurant. Eighteen people had reserved seats
at the Holey Artisan Bakery, whose crusty flour-dusted loaves of bread
and piles of homemade pasta offered a respite from the sticky, clamorous
city that surrounded it.
Witnesses Describe Moments of Terror
Witnesses recounted their experience at a restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where terrorists took hostages, killing 20 people.
By REUTERS, INDEPENDENT TV and THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
on Publish Date July 2, 2016.
Photo by Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.
Watch in Times Video »
Seven
Italian friends had gathered around one table, and three or four at a
second, recalled Diego Rossini, a chef who is from Argentina. Someone
had just ordered an Italian pasta dish, and Mr. Rossini made his way to
the kitchen, preparing for a much larger crowd that was expected at 9:30
p.m.
But
at 8:45, a half-dozen young men entered, carrying heavy bags of
weaponry, including grenades and long rifles. Mr. Rossini, the chef,
fled to the roof. He heard screams, and shouts of “Allahu akbar,” as the
gunmen sought out patrons who were hiding.
“There
were a lot of foreigners,” he told Canal 5 Noticias, an Argentine cable
news station. “That’s who they were particularly looking for.”
Even
as they killed the foreigners, the attackers were unfailingly polite
and solicitous with the restaurant staff and other Bangladeshis, Mr.
Barai said.
They
took the staff into their confidence, complaining that foreigners, with
their skimpy clothes and taste for alcohol, were impeding the spread of
Islam. “Their lifestyle is encouraging local people to do the same
thing,” a militant said.
They
asked the staff to make coffee and tea and serve it to the remaining
hostages. At 3:30 a.m., when Muslims eat a predawn meal before fasting,
they asked the kitchen staff to prepare and serve dishes of fish and
shrimp, he said.
Mr.
Barai recalls being puzzled by the attackers, who spoke cosmopolitan
Bengali, and even some English, when conversing with the foreigners.
“They
were all smart and handsome and educated,” he said. “If you look at
those guys, nobody could believe they could do this.” In the predawn
hours, the militants lectured their captives on religious practices,
instructing the kitchen staff to say regular prayers and study the
Quran.
Early
in the morning, the gunmen released a group of women wearing hijabs and
offered a young Bangladeshi man, Faraz Hossain, the opportunity to
leave, too, said Hishaam Hossain, Mr. Hossain’s nephew, who had heard an
account from the hostages who were freed.
Mr.
Hossain, a student at Emory University, was accompanied by two women
wearing Western clothes, however, and when the gunmen asked the women
where they were from, they said India and the United States. The gunmen
refused to release them, and Mr. Hossain refused to leave them behind,
his relative said. He would be among those found dead on Saturday
morning.
Amid Crackdown, ISIS Warns of New Attacks in Bangladesh
DHAKA, Bangladesh — The authorities in Bangladesh
began a broad effort on Wednesday to compile a list of young men who
have disappeared and may have been recruited by militant groups for
terrorist operations like last week’s massacre of 22 people at a restaurant in the capital, Dhaka.
The
attack was the deadliest in a series of murders since 2013, which
initially targeted atheist bloggers but later also included foreigners,
minorities and gay activists. The authorities have blamed local militant
groups, although the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and a regional branch of Al Qaeda have taken credit for many of the killings.
The
Islamic State claimed responsibility for last weekend’s assault as it
was underway, and released a video late Tuesday night warning that the
attacks would not stop until an Islamic government was established.
The
police were setting up checkpoints around the city and said that anyone
sharing, uploading or commenting favorably on jihadist activities
online would face punishment. They also began what they described as a
huge effort to focus on young people who have disappeared in recent
months, like the men
who carried out the 11-hour siege last weekend. All of them had
vanished between December and February, family members and the police
said.
The
Islamic State’s warning, in English and Bengali, heightened fears in
Dhaka, which has been on high alert since the killing of 20 hostages in
the restaurant, most of them foreigners, and two police officers. The
nearly six-minute video, released on Twitter and the Telegram app,
warned of more attacks to come.
“What
you witnessed in Bangladesh yesterday was a glimpse,” a militant said
in the video, made public by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors
jihadist websites. “This will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose
and we win.”
Law
enforcement officials struggled with how to get word out to families
about the importance of reporting the sudden disappearance of young male
relatives, a senior intelligence official said.
The
father of one of the attackers made an impassioned plea to other
parents to keep an eye on their children and protect them from jihadist
recruitment. “I request all parents give more time to their children,
give more attention to their children,” said the father, Imtiaz Khan
Babul, a former Dhaka politician, choking up as he spoke.
“This will repeat,
repeat and repeat until
you lose and we win.”
A militant in a jihadist videorepeat and repeat until
you lose and we win.”
Mr.
Babul, a physical education teacher, said that after his son, Rohan,
vanished in late December, he met several other parents whose boys had
also disappeared. “One of the parents was a former army officer, and I
can tell you all of the missing sons were from well-established,
educated families,” he said. “One was a judge, another a banker.”
Mr. Babul, 58, berated himself for failing to recognize warning signs, saying, “I feel I am a failed father.”
The
attackers included three young men from elite backgrounds, including
Mr. Babul’s son, and two from low-income families in the northern part
of the country, the police said.
How Will Bangladesh Respond to the ISIS-Inspired Attack in Dhaka?
On Friday evening, when gunmen burst into the Holey Artisan Bakery, in Dhaka, the restaurant was quiet.
Few of its regular Muslim customers were dining out, having just broken
their Ramadan fasts at home, so the tables were occupied largely by
expatriates: a group of Italians out for dinner, another cluster of
Japanese, Sri Lankans, and Indians. This was a crowd typical of Gulshan,
a neighborhood of diplomats and corporate executives, which, with its
tranquil streets and watercolor lake views, feels a long way from the
traffic-choked bedlam elsewhere in Dhaka. Storming the Holey Artisan
Bakery was, in other words, a result of diligent homework. It wasn’t
until the next morning, ten hours later, that Bangladesh Army commandos
broke the siege, killing six attackers and arresting a seventh. Most of
the twenty slain victims were foreigners; one, a sophomore at Emory
University, was an American of Bangladeshi origin. Thirteen people,
patrons as well as staff, survived. Through the long, terrible night, one eyewitness said,
the attackers tested the hostages, torturing or murdering them if they
couldn’t recite verses from the Koran. “We will not kill Bengalis,” one
of the gunmen said, according to the Times. “We will only kill foreigners.”
The
attack, which was subsequently claimed by the Islamic State, through
its Amaq information agency, provides a tragically clarifying moment in
Bangladesh’s recent history of violence. Since 2013, at least forty
people across the country have been killed in separate attacks—on the
streets or in their homes, many sliced to death with machetes. Among the
first victims were several secular bloggers,
including an American, Avijit Roy, who was killed in February, 2015;
foreigners, publishers, minority Hindus and Christians, and gay-rights
activists have also been murdered.
Why ISIS is 'lashing out,' from Baghdad to Bangladesh
Modes of thought
Just days after the Iraqi government declared it had ousted ISIS from
Fallujah, the militant group unleashed the deadliest bombing Baghdad
has seen since 2006.
But at midnight on Saturday, just days after Iraq declared victory in Fallujah, a truck bomb detonated in the central Karrada district, killing 215 people in the deadliest single bombing Baghdad has seen in a decade.
For Baghdad’s embattled residents, the blast was revenge for the loss of Fallujah, and yet more tragedy at the hands of IS, also known as ISIS – which they were told was on the run and facing defeat.
Bangladesh Government Refuses to Accept Facts Regarding ISIS Attack Claims
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
In the last month, the Islamic State
(ISIS) has claimed responsibility for three attacks in Bangladesh: the
killing of Italian national Tavella Cesare on September 28, the killing of Japanese national Kunio Hoshi on October 3, and bombings of a Shi’ite temple in Dhaka on October 24.The Bangladesh government has been aggressively denying ISIS involvement in the attacks. As these misleading efforts to make ISIS’ attack claims go unnoticed have failed, the government has turned its efforts toward a baseless campaign to discredit SITE, which was first to report on the claims, as well as its Director, Rita Katz.
SITE stands by its reports on ISIS’ claims of the three attacks in Bangladesh. The claims have been authenticated and found credible by SITE's rigorous verification process. Furthermore, all of the aforementioned claims were also featured in numerous IS media channels, including Telegram Messenger and the group’s publically available al-Bayan reports. Citizens and government officials in Bangladesh can even read the claims in their own language on a pro-ISIS Bengali blog.
The Bangladesh government's denial of ISIS’ attack claims and its continuous attempts to defame SITE's impeccable record do not change the fact that ISIS did claim responsibility for the aforementioned attacks. Furthermore, the Bangladesh government's smear tactics will do nothing to taint SITE’s reputation as the most trusted source of online jihadi monitoring and analysis.
It would serve the Bangladesh government much better to face the truth and focus its aggression on its real enemy, ISIS, rather than on those who warn about it.
Bangladesh is free from isis.
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