Hostage-taking in Dhaka in 2016
During a hostage-taking in Dhaka , the capital of Bangladesh , on July 1, 2016 at around 9:20 p.m. local time, a group of armed men attacked the Holey Artisan Bakery café in the Gulshan diplomatic district and took a double-digit number of people hostage . After several hours of unsuccessful negotiations between the perpetrators and the police, a special detachment stormed the café. 13 hostages were freed, 20 guests, two police officers and at least five hostage-takers died. The act had an Islamist background . The Bangladeshi authorities blamed a radical wing of the Islamist group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) for the crime.
Sequence of events
At around 9:20 p.m. local time on July 1, 2016, a group of armed men stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery café in the Gulshan diplomatic district of Dhaka. Initially nine attackers were suspected, later this number was reduced to seven in police reports. The hostage-takers shouted " Allahu Akhbar ", set off explosives and brought at least 35 people under their control. Some café employees were able to escape to the roof of the building and then pass on information to the police officers who had been summoned.
During the siege that followed, there were repeated exchanges of fire between the perpetrators and the police. After around twelve hours of unsuccessful negotiations, a police special task force stormed the restaurant on the morning of July 2nd. Thirteen hostages were freed. Twenty hostages had been murdered by the terrorists. Most of the Muslim hostages were spared by the terrorists. Those who could quote the Koran received something to eat instead.
Victim
| nationality | number |
|---|---|
 Italy
|
9 |
 Japan
|
7th |
 Bangladesh
|
4 1 |
 United States
|
1 |
 India
|
1 |
| total | 22nd |
| 1 including two policemen | |
After the storm, the police found the bodies of twenty hostages. According to an army spokesman , the victims were "brutally killed with stabbing and cutting weapons". Later autopsies showed that some of the hostages had been downright tortured and mutilated. The women in particular had very serious injuries.
In addition to two Bangladeshis, the victims were mostly foreigners: nine Italians, seven Japanese, one US-American of Bangladeshi origin and one Indian. The Japanese (5 men, 2 women) were employees of the Japanese state development aid organization JICA . The Italians (5 women, 4 men) were mostly active in the textile industry, as was a Bangladeshi woman. A Bangladeshi, the Indian and the American (of Bangladeshi origin) were student friends. Two police officers were also killed. At least twenty-two people were injured.
Perpetrator
After the storm, the authorities announced that six hostage-takers had been killed and the seventh could be arrested. According to press reports, four other people, allegedly employees of the Holey Artisan , were also taken away in handcuffs. It soon emerged that the cafe's pizza maker, who was apparently accidentally shot by the police, was probably mistakenly counted among the hostage takers. Whether the arrested man, who was employed as a kitchen helper in the café and who died a few days later from his serious injuries, was actually a hostage-taker or a hostage could not be determined with certainty before his death.
The IS spokesperson Amaq announced that the " Islamic State " was taking responsibility for the attack and published photos of five terrorists posing with a gun in front of an Islamic State flag. The Bangladeshi government, on the other hand, took the view that a local Islamist organization called Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh had carried out the attack.
Reactions
Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina denied the terrorists being Muslims in a televised address. The Italian national football team played their quarter-final against Germany at the European Football Championship 2016 on July 2 with a black ribbon . In addition, a minute of silence with acclamation for the victims of the attack was held at the Bordeaux stadium before the start of the match .
Suspected hostages released
Thirteen hostages survived the hostage situation. However, several of these people were arrested by the Bangladeshi security forces on suspicion of being associated with or assisting the hostage-takers. As of July 29, 2016, nothing more was known about the whereabouts of two surviving guests of the restaurant, Hasnat Karim and Tahmid Khan. The police chief of Dhaka replied to a request that the two had made themselves suspicious of their behavior during the hostage-taking, but that he did not know where the two accused were. The family members of the two arrested people vigorously denied having had any connection with the hostage-takers. They only survived because they could quote verses from the Koran and otherwise follow the instructions of the hostage-takers, which they would have used as human shields . Human rights organizations expressed concern and urged the Bangladeshi authorities to either formulate a specific charge or to immediately release the two people.
Political context
Since around 2013 there have been increasing attacks in Bangladesh on people who have publicly represented a secular or atheist worldview or who have spoken out against political Islamism. The victims of these attacks were initially overwhelmingly internet bloggers , but then increasingly also intellectuals (professors, students, publishers). The victims were usually attacked by a small group of young men who were armed with machetes or cleavers and who were jointly cutting their victims. Since 2015, members of religious minorities ( Hindus , Christians , Buddhists , but also Shiites ) and foreigners have been increasingly attacked. The perpetrators were arrested only in a minority of the cases. In these cases an Islamist background emerged. The terrorist organization Islamic State repeatedly assumed responsibility for individual attacks, but in this case various authorities denied that the Islamic State was responsible, including the Bangladeshi government, which blamed local Islamist groups. Representatives of the US government also suspected al-Qaeda rather than the Islamic State to be behind the attacks.
On August 27, 2016, the alleged mastermind and organizer of the attack, Tamim Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi from Sylhet who had lived temporarily in Canada, was killed in a gun battle with Bangladeshi police units in the Narayanganj district . On January 7, 2017, Nurul Islam Marzan, who was considered one of the main coordinators of the hostage-taking by the Bangladeshi authorities, died in a firefight with the Bangladeshi police.
See also
Web links
- Hostage-taking in Dhaka ended - 20 civilians dead. Spiegel Online, July 2, 2016
- Volker Pabst: New Dimension of Islamist Violence in Bangladesh. NZZ, July 2, 2016
- Bangladesh victories: Twenty killed at Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka. BBC News, July 2, 2016
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Timeline: Dhaka terror attack. (No longer available online.) Dhaka Tribune, July 2, 2016, archived from the original July 2, 2016 ; accessed on July 2, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Meg Wagner: Bangladesh café attackers spared Muslim hostages, gave food to those who could recite Koran. Daily News . July 2, 2016, accessed July 3, 2016.
- ↑ a b c Nationalities of Holey Artisan victims disclosed. The Daily Star, July 2, 2016, accessed July 2, 2016 .
- ^ Wajahat S. Khan, Erik Oritz: Gunmen Kill 4 Officers, Take Dozens Hostage in Bangladesh , NBC News. July 1, 2016.
- ^ Autopsy finds Italian victims were tortured. (No longer available online.) Dhaka Tribune, July 9, 2016, archived from the original on July 9, 2016 ; accessed on July 9, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Assaults on women were horrific. (No longer available online.) Dhaka Tribune, July 15, 2016, archived from the original on July 20, 2016 ; accessed on July 20, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ 'God wants you to die': Dhaka's long night of terror. CNN, July 5, 2016, accessed July 20, 2016 .
- ↑ Bangladesh pizza chef mistakenly killed by police during restaurant attack. The Guardian, July 5, 2016, accessed July 20, 2016 .
- ↑ 'Terror suspect' dies in custody. (No longer available online.) Dhaka Tribune, July 8, 2016, archived from the original on July 20, 2016 ; accessed on July 20, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Identifying the terrorists. (No longer available online.) Dhaka Tribune, July 3, 2016, archived from the original on July 3, 2016 ; accessed on July 4, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Terror in Bangladesh: Assassins in Dhaka are said to have been local Islamists. Spiegel Online, Jul 3, 2016, accessed on the same day.
- ↑ EM 2016: Italy plays with a black ribbon against Germany in the quarterfinals. The daily newspaper . July 2, 2016, accessed July 3, 2016.
- ↑ EM 2016 in the match log Germany - Italy 7: 6 , t-online.de, from July 3, 2016
- ↑ Anbarasan Ethirajan: Family of Dhaka cafe siege survivor fears for his safety. BBC News, July 29, 2016, accessed July 30, 2016 .
- ↑ Bangladesh 'cafe attack planner killed' in police raid. BBC News, August 27, 2016, accessed August 28, 2016 .
- ↑ Kamrul Hasan, Arifur Rahman Rabbi: Marjan, Saddam killed in Mohammadpur 'gunfight'. Dhaka Tribune, January 6, 2017, accessed January 7, 2017 .
Coordinates: 23 ° 48 ′ 9 ″ N , 90 ° 25 ′ 0.2 ″ E