Tag Archives: Bangladesh

Bangladesh says some restaurant attackers were well off and educated

By Aditya Kalra and Serajul Quadir

DHAKA (Reuters) – Bangladesh police sought more information on Monday from friends and family of the men suspected of carrying out a deadly attack on a restaurant in the capital, and some are believed to have attended top schools and colleges at home and abroad.

The gunmen stormed the restaurant in Dhaka’s diplomatic zone late on Friday and killed 20 people, most of them foreigners from Italy, Japan, India and the United States, in an assault claimed by Islamic State.

It was one of the deadliest militant attacks to date in Bangladesh, where Islamic State and al Qaeda have claimed a series of killings of liberals and religious minorities in the last year while the government says they were carried out by local groups.

Whoever was responsible, Friday’s attack marked a major escalation in the scale and brutality of militant violence aimed at forcing strict Islamic rule in Bangladesh, whose 160 million people are mostly Muslim.

Islamic State posted pictures of five fighters it said were involved in Friday’s atrocity to avenge attacks on Muslims across the world.

“Let the people of the crusader countries know that there is no safety for them as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims,” it said in a statement.

Posts on Facebook identified the men, pictured on an Islamic State website grinning in front of a black flag, as Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz, Meer Saameh Mubasheer, Andaleeb Ahmed and Raiyan Minhaj.

Most went to prestigious schools or universities in Dhaka and Malaysia, officials said.

“A majority of the boys who attacked the restaurant came from very good educational institutions. Some went to sophisticated schools. Their families are relatively well-to-do people,” Bangladeshi Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu told India’s NDTV.

TRACING ROOTS

Several posts on social media said the man identified by police as Nibras Islam attended Monash University in Malaysia. A friend who knew him while he studied at Dhaka’s North South University told Reuters that Islam later went to Monash.

Two others went to an elite public school in Dhaka called Scholastica. Masudur Rahman, deputy commissioner of Dhaka police, said officers were investigating those links.

Initial evidence points to the fact that Nibras Islam, Meer Saameh Mubasheer and Rohan Imtiaz “may be involved,” in the attack, Rahman said.

“There may be a link to international terrorist groups, including IS; we are looking into that angle,” he said, adding that the attackers were educated, well off and brainwashed.

Saifaul Islam, another investigator, said police were holding two people suspected of involvement in the assault, including one detained soon after the attack.

“We have two persons with us, but we don’t know if they are victims or suspects. They are currently undergoing treatment and we’d get to know about their role in the incident only after they recover.”

Nobody had yet come forward to claim the bodies of the six dead men, he said. “We are taking DNA samples of them and will see if it matches with the families. We have some suspicions, we know some boys had gone missing over the last two-three months.”

Just days after the attack claimed by its rival jihadi movement Islamic State, a regional branch of al Qaeda urged Muslims in India to revolt and carry out lone wolf attacks.

The call by al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) follows warnings by security officials and experts that the two groups are trying to outdo each other in the region and claim the mantle of global jihad.

Bangladesh’s $26 billion garment industry is braced for the fallout from the killings, fearing major retailers from Marks and Spencer to Gap Inc could rethink their investment.

Japan’s Fast Retailing Co, owner of the Uniqlo casual-wear brand, will suspend all but critical travel to Bangladesh and has told staff there to stay home.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has offered Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina help in the investigation.

“The Secretary (Kerry) encouraged the government of Bangladesh to conduct its investigation in accordance with the highest international standards and offered immediate assistance from U.S. law enforcement, including the FBI,” U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said.

(Additional reporting by Rupam Jain in NEW DELHI and Zeba Siddiqui in MUMBAI; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani and Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Nick Macfie)

Gunmen take hostages at cafe in Dhaka’s diplomatic quarter

Gulshan area in Dhaka, Bangladesh

DHAKA (Reuters) – Gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with expatriates in the diplomatic quarter of the Bangladeshi capital on Friday and took hostages, including several foreigners, police said.

Eight to nine gunmen attacked the Holey Artisan restaurant in the upscale Gulshan area of Dhaka, and police were preparing to start an operation to rescue the hostages, said Benjir Ahmed, the chief of Bangladesh’s special police force.

CNN said 20 people were being held in the restaurant.

Ahmed said the assailants had hurled bombs at police. One policeman was dead and two others wounded by gunfire that erupted as they surrounded the restaurant, police said.

A resident near the scene of the attack said he could hear sporadic gunfire nearly three hours after the attack began. “It is chaos out there. The streets are blocked. There are dozens of police commandos,” said Tarique Mir.

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.

Militants killed two foreigners last year, leading several Western firms involved in the country’s $25 billion garment sector to temporarily halt visits to Dhaka.

Both Islamic State and al Qaeda have claimed responsibility for militant attacks in the country. But the government denies foreign militant organizations are involved and blames two local groups, Ansar-al-Islam and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen.

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

(Reporting by Serajul Quadir; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Deadly cyclone pounds Bangladesh, Sri Lanka

By Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Tens of thousands of people in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka need aid including clean drinking water, dry food rations and medicines after a deadly cyclone hammered the South Asia region, aid agencies said on Tuesday.

With wind speeds reaching 90 kph (56 mph) and heavy rains, cyclone Roanu struck Bangladesh on Saturday, after buffeting India and Sri Lanka in the Bay of Bengal – killing at least 120 people and affecting hundreds of thousands more in the region.

Aid workers said Roanu’s torrential rains triggered flooding, landslides and tidal surges mostly in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh – ripping apart thousands of rickety homes, burying entire villages and inundating swathes of farmland.

“Tens of thousands of poor families will have lost most of their assets – not just their houses, but also their food stores, seasonal crops and vital livestock such as cows, goats and ducks,” said Shakeb Nabi, Christian Aid’s Bangladesh head.

“Access to food, safe drinking water, health supplies and sanitation materials is limited in some villages. Water points have been ruined, ground water contaminated and agricultural land destroyed.”

In Sri Lanka, where more than a week of heavy rains has triggered the worst flooding in 25 years, the United Nations said it was worried about the spread of diseases due to large amounts of standing water.

The World Health Organization said there was an increased risk of vector borne diseases like malaria, water borne and diarrheal diseases, the bacterial disease leptospirosis, fungal diseases and acute respiratory infections.

“Prevention measures to combat such diseases are essential,” it added.

Roanu is the first cyclone of the season, which generally lasts from April to December, with severe storms often causing mass evacuations from coastal low-lying villages and widespread crop and property damage.

RUSHING IN RELIEF

Aid agencies in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka said they had begun distributing relief in the worst affected districts and foreign aid had started arriving in Sri Lanka from countries including India, Pakistan and Singapore.

Half a million people have had their lives disrupted in Bangladesh’s low-lying coastal areas such as Barisal and Chittagong, and over 255,000 people are affected in Sri Lankan districts including Kegalle, Gamapaha and the capital Colombo in the west.

“We have pre-positioned household materials and hygiene kits that we can dispatch to affected areas and distribute to communities in urgent need,” said Senait Gebregziabher, country director for Plan International.

“These materials will be essential as children and families affected by the cyclone, particularly those forced to leave their homes, will most likely be seeking food, shelter, basic sanitation and access to clean water.”

Sri Lanka has reported 94 deaths and 107 people missing. Bangladesh said at least 24 people had died and India reported two deaths.

U.N. emergency officials said Roanu also brought heavy rains and flooding to coastal eastern and southern India and western parts of Myanmar, but the impact was less severe.

(Reporting by Nita Bhalla. Additional reporting by Shihar Aneez in Colombo, Ruma Paul in Dhaka, Alisa Tang in Bangkok. Editing by Emma Batha. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)

Bangladeshi probe panel’s chief says SWIFT responsible for cyber theft

Bangladesh central bank

DHAKA (Reuters) – A Bangladesh government-appointed panel investigating the theft of $81 million from the country’s central bank has found that SWIFT, the international banking payments network, committed a number of mistakes in connecting up a local network, the panel head said on Sunday.

“We have shown that SWIFT made a number of errors that made it easy for the hackers,” Mohammed Farashuddin, a former governor of the Bangladeshi central bank, told reporters.

He said SWIFT, a cooperative owned by 3,000 financial institutions, could not escape responsibility as it had connected its network to the central bank’s new real time gross settlement (RTGS) system launched in October for domestic transactions.

“SWIFT is responsible for the heist of Bangladesh Bank as it approached the central bank for the installation of RTGS real time gross settlement,” Farashuddin said.

SWIFT has already rejected allegations made by Dhaka that it had been at fault, saying its financial messaging system remained secure and had not been breached by the hackers during the attack on Bangladesh Bank.

The hackers broke into the computer systems of the central bank in early February and issued instructions through the SWIFT network to transfer $951 million of its deposits held at the New York Federal Reserve Bank to accounts in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

Most of the transactions were blocked but four went through amounting to $81 million, prompting allegations by Bangladeshi officials that both the Fed and SWIFT had failed to detect the fraud.

Bangladeshi police and a bank official said earlier this month that the central bank became more vulnerable to hackers when technicians from SWIFT connected the new bank transaction system to SWIFT messaging three months before the cyber theft.

The local Daily Star newspaper quoted Farashuddin as saying that SWIFT failed to implement 13 security measures in the installation of the system.

Farashuddin is due to submit his final report to the government in the next few days.

A spokeswoman for SWIFT said she had no immediate comment to make.

In a letter to users dated May 3, SWIFT told its bank customers that they were responsible for securing computers used to send messages over its network.

(Reporting by Serajul Qaudir; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Islamic State says killing of Christian in Bangladesh was ‘lesson to others’

DHAKA (Reuters) – Islamic State claimed responsibility for stabbing a Christian to death in Bangladesh as a “lesson to others”, an online group that monitors extremist activity said, the latest killing declared by the militant group in the Muslim-majority nation.

The South Asian country has seen a surge in Islamist violence in which liberal activists, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups have been targeted.

The U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group said Islamic State claimed responsibility for killing Hussein Ali Sarkar in Kurigram, north of Dhaka.

The group reported on Twitter that a “security detachment” killed the “preacher” to be a “lesson to others”.

Police said the 68-year-old victim converted to Christianity from Islam in 1999 but was not a preacher.

Kurigram district police chief Tobarak Ullah said three attackers stabbed him while he was having his morning walk on Tuesday.

“They left the scene exploding crude bombs to create panic,” Ullah told Reuters by telephone.

“We have started an investigation into the murder. So far, we have not found any militant link.”

Five men were picked up for questioning, he said.

Over the last few months, Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killings of two foreigners, attacks on members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups, but the government has denied that the militant group has a presence in Bangladesh.

Police say home-grown militant group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, thought to have been lying low since six of its top leaders were hanged in 2007, was behind the recent attacks.

Dozens of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen members have been arrested and at least five killed in shootouts since November, as security forces have stepped up a crackdown on militants seeking to make the moderate Muslim nation of 160 million a sharia-based state.

In 2005, the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen set off nearly 500 bombs almost simultaneously on a single day, including in Dhaka. Subsequent suicide attacks on courts killed 25 people and injured hundreds.

(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Christian convert stabbed to death in Bangladesh

DHAKA (Reuters) – Suspected Islamist militants stabbed a Christian convert to death in northern Bangladesh on Tuesday, the latest in a series of attacks on minorities in the Muslim-majority nation.

The South Asian country has seen a surge in Islamist violence in which liberal activists, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups have been targeted.

Police said three attackers came on a motorbike and stabbed Hossain Ali, 68, while he was having his morning walk in Kurigram, north of Dhaka.

“They left the scene exploding crude bombs to create panic,” Kurigram district police chief Tobarak Ullah told Reuters by telephone.

Ali converted to Christianity from Islam in 1999, he added.

“We are not sure whether Islamist militants carried out the attack,” he said, adding that the pattern of killing bore the hallmarks of recent attacks by Islamist militants.

Three men were picked up for questioning, he said.

Over the last few months, Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killings of two foreigners, attacks on members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups, but police say domestic militant group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen is behind the attacks.

At least five militants of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen have been killed in shootouts since November, as security forces have stepped up a crackdown on militants seeking to make the moderate Muslim nation of 160 million a sharia-based state.

(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Bangladesh arrests Islamist militants over bomb plot, seizes explosives

DHAKA (Reuters) – Officials of Bangladesh’s anti-terrorism unit on Monday detained five suspected members of a banned Islamist militant group for planning attacks during celebrations of the Bengali New Year next month, a spokesman said.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh has experienced a surge in Islamist violence, targeting liberal activists, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups.

The five members of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh were arrested in an overnight raid on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka, said Mizanur Rahman Bhuiya, spokesman of the country’s Rapid Action Battalion, drawn from its police and military.

“Acting on a tip-off, the Rapid Action Battalion arrested them from an apartment,” he said, adding that a large quantity of gel explosives and other bomb-making materials were seized.

He said the group had been planning to target celebrations of Bengali New Year, the biggest event in the moderate Muslim nation of 160 million.

At least five militants of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen have been killed in shootouts since November, as security forces have stepped up the crackdown on Islamist militants looking to establish a sharia-based Islamic state.

The group has designated no representatives to provide comment.

Celebrations of Bengali New Year in April 2001 were marred by bomb blasts in Dhaka set off by another militant group, Harkat-ul Jihad Islami, which killed at least 10 people.

In 2005, the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen set off nearly 500 bombs almost simultaneously on a single day, including in Dhaka. Subsequent suicide attacks on courthouses by its militants killed 25 people and injured hundreds.

The group, thought to have been lying low since six of its top leaders were hanged in 2007, is blamed for a spate of recent attacks, including the shooting of three foreigners, two of whom died.

Militant group Islamic State has claimed responsibility for some recent attacks, including the killing of a Hindu priest last month, but the government denies it has a presence in Bangladesh.

(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Magnitude 6.7 Earthquake Leads to Death, Destruction in India, Bangladesh

An early-morning earthquake rattled India and the neighboring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar on Monday, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

The USGS reported the magnitude 6.7 quake was first felt at 4:35 a.m. local time on Monday. It was centered about 18 miles west of Impahl, the capital of the Indian province of Manipur.

The quake caused the deaths of at least 11 people in India and Bangladesh, Reuters reported, and injured approximately 190 more. According to Reuters, the earthquake knocked down portions of buildings in Impahl, while shaking was felt in a Myanmar city about 730 miles away.

The USGS said the region is known for seismic activity, and 19 magnitude 6.0-plus earthquakes have occurred within a 150-mile radius of Monday’s ground-shaker within the past 100 years. Most of the people in the region live in buildings prone to earthquake damage, the USGS said.

Reuters reported the latest quake knocked out power and phone lines, complicating rescue efforts.

Islamists Cause Clashes In Bangladesh Over Court Sentence

Islamists across Bangladesh are rioting and protesting over the death sentence handed down to one of the leaders of the group Jamaat-e-Islami.

Abdul Kader Mullah was sentenced to be hanged for crimes against humanity committed during the nation’s 1971 war of independence. Jamaat-e-Islami called for a two day nationwide strike against the government which has resulted in violent protests. Continue reading →