Dhaka (AFP) - Heavily armed Bangladeshi commandos stormed a Dhaka restaurant Saturday where suspected Islamist militants were holding dozens of people hostage, including foreigners, after a deadly firefight with police, officials said. An AFP photographer at the scene said he could hear a massive gunfight as security forces launched the rescue operation more than 10 hours after militants seized the hostages.
Five Bangladeshi hostages were rescued in the first few minutes of the operation, the security official told AFP.
The IS group claimed responsibility for the attack Friday night on the Holey Artisan Bakery restaurant in the capital's upmarket Gulshan diplomatic quarter in which two police officers were killed. Police said the gunmen burst into the restaurant as people were having dinner at around 9:20 pm (1520 GMT) and set off explosives.
Italy's ambassador Mario Palma told Italian state television seven Italians were among the hostages. Japan said some of its nationals may also have been among the captives. "There is no desire to negotiate," Palma said of the attackers. "It's a suicide mission."
Some diners managed to escape including an Argentine chef and a Bangladeshi man who took refuge in an adjacent building, but police said there were still a number of people being held inside the restaurant hours after the assault. Some managed to speak to relatives by phone, reporting there were up to 40 people trapped inside, around half of them foreigners, the private Ekattur TV station said. Another had told relatives he feared they would be killed if police tried to storm the restaurant to end the siege.
The White House said US President Barack Obama had been briefed on the attack, a rare occurrence in an area of Dhaka considered relatively safe. The restaurant's supervisor Sumon Reza who escaped by jumping from the roof told a local newspaper there were 20 foreigners being held hostage.
Bangladesh has been reeling from a wave of murders of religious minorities and secular activists by suspected Islamist militants. But those murders generally only involved a handful of assailants and the latest attack appears to have been on a much bigger scale and the first time that people were held hostage.
