Bangladesh attack: Isis claims responsibility after 'foreign hostages' taken and police killed by gunmen at Dhaka cafe

Attack: An injured member of the police personnel is carried away by his colleagues
Reuters
Mark Chandler1 July 2016

Isis has claimed responsibility for an attack by up to nine gunmen on a Bangladesh café this evening where foreigners were reportedly taken hostage and police were shot dead.

Gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with expatriates in the diplomatic quarter of the Bangladeshi capital, police said.

Eight to nine people attacked the Holey Artisan restaurant in the upmarket Gulshan area of Dhaka, said Benjir Ahmed, the chief of Bangladesh's special police force.

CNN said 20 people were being held in the restaurant and the UK Foreign Office says it is "urgently seeking more information" on the situation.

Bangladeshi security forces stand guard as they seal off the streets close to the restaurant
EPA

Italian nationals are thought to be among the hostages taken.

Italy's Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said on Twitter he was closely following the situation in Dhaka, adding he was "anxious for Italians involved" and expressing solidarity with their families.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi abruptly left a ceremony at the Colosseum in Rome on Friday evening to follow the hostage-taking incident, it has been reported.

Restaurant attack: Bangladeshi security personnel cordon off the area
AP Photo

A news agency run by Islamic State claimed the militant group's affiliates were responsible for the attack and that 20 people had been slaughtered.

However, Bangladeshi police have confirmed only two police officers were shot dead, and said they were still trying to free the hostages.

Hospital authorities reported another 25 officers and one civilian were being treated for injuries, including 10 people listed in critical condition.

The injuries include bullet wounds and broken bones, they said.

Mr Ahmed claimed the assailants had hurled bombs at police as officers laid siege to the building.

A resident near the scene of the attack said he could hear sporadic gunfire nearly three hours after the attack began.

Siege: An injured police officer is escorted by a colleague after suffering wounds from a crude bomb
EPA

Tarique Mir said: "It is chaos out there. The streets are blocked. There are dozens of police commandos."

Bangladesh has seen an increase in militant Islamist violence over the last year. Deadly attacks have been mounted against atheists and members of religious minorities in the mostly Muslim country of 160 million people, with attackers often using machetes.

The US State Department said all Americans working at the US mission there had been accounted for. A spokesman said in Washington the situation was "very fluid, very live.”

Additional reporting by Reuters.

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