3 U.S. College Students Among 20 Hostages Killed In Bangladesh Attack
DHAKA, Bangladesh (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Three students attending school in the U.S. were among 20 victims of an extremist attack in Bangladesh.
The dramatic, 10-hour hostage crisis that gripped Bangladesh's diplomatic zone ended Saturday morning with at least 28 dead, including six of the attackers, as commandos raided the popular restaurant where heavily armed attackers were holding dozens of foreigners and Bangladeshis prisoner while hurling bombs and engaging in a gunbattle with security forces. The victims included 20 hostages, mostly foreigners, and two Bangladeshi police officers.
Emory University President James Wagner said in emails to employees that Faraaz Hossain and Abinta Kabir were killed after militants took hostages at the restaurant.
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Kabir was a student at the school's campus in Oxford. She was visiting family and friends in Bangladesh when she was taken hostage and killed. Hossain had completed his second year at Oxford and was headed to the business school in the fall.
School spokeswoman Elaine Justice says Kabir was from Miami, Florida, and Hossain was from Dhaka.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out on behalf of Faraaz and Abinta, their friends and family for strength and peace at this unspeakably bad time," Emory University tweeted Saturday.
A third college student, Tarishi Jain, was also killed in the attack. She was a sophomore at University of California, CBS2's Cindy Hsu reported.
The others confirmed dead include nine Italians, seven Japanese and one Indian.The White House says a U.S. citizen was also among those killed.
Official Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury said six of the attackers were killed in the rescue operations early Saturday. Thirteen captives, including some foreigners, were rescued.
A huge contingent of security forces cordoned off the area around the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka's Gulshan area. Several other wounded police officers were hospitalized after security forces exchanged fire with the attackers inside the restaurant who also hurled bombs. Two police officers were killed when the attackers stormed the popular restaurant and opened fire Friday night.
After the standoff, a large contingent of security forces moved in around 8 a.m. Saturday to try and rescue the hostages.
"Our commandos have stormed into the restaurant. Intense gun fighting on," Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, a deputy director at the Rapid Action Battalion force, told Reuters.
Chowdhury did not disclose the identities of the hostages.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery, according to the SITE Intelligence Group. The group released graphic photos of the five men it says carried out the attack in Bangladesh.
The SITE Intelligence Group says the photos were circulated online Saturday, and identified the attackers by noms de guerre indicating they are Bangladeshi. The militants are each shown smiling and posing in front of a black IS flag.
SITE says the IS-run Aamaq news agency issued a new report on the attack. Aamaq says the fighters used "knives, cleavers, assault rifles and hand grenades" but released Muslims unharmed.
An earlier IS statement says the attack on the upscale restaurant in the capital, Dhaka, targeted citizens of "Crusader countries," saying citizens of such countries would not be safe "as long as their warplanes kill Muslims.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has condemned the Dhaka restaurant attack by militants. She also said that security officials arrested one of the militants. Six others were killed, 13 hostage rescued while seven Japanese are unaccounted for.
The head of Japan's development agency has expressed his strong indignation toward the attackers in the Bangladesh restaurant attack, saying the Japanese taken hostage were working hard for the development of the South Asian country.
One Japanese hostage has been hospitalized, and the fate of seven others is unknown. They were outside consultants working for Japan's development agency on an infrastructure project.
Hasina says: "Because of the effort of the joint force, the terrorists could not flee."
She vowed to fight terrorist attacks in the country and urged people to come forward.
She says: "Anyone who believes in religion cannot do such act. They do not have any religion, their only religion is terrorism."
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said a government plane was on its way to the Bangladeshi capital. He told reporters in Rome on Saturday that "we followed the events" in Dhaka "all night hoping for a different outcome."
One Italian who managed to escape the attack was earlier quoted as saying there had been 10 or 11 Italians seated at two tables when the attack began on Friday night in the diplomatic quarter of Dhaka.
"I was seated with my wife and a customer, at the other (there were) seven, eight persons," Gianni Boschetti told the Italian news agency ANSA, without giving any details about the fate of his wife or the others. Earlier, Italian radio reports said an Italian cook had escaped unharmed, but it was not immediately clear if Boschetti might be the cook.
Renzi said the "Italians are hit, but not bent" by the "folly"' of radical extremism.
India's foreign minister Sushma Swaraj said in a message from her Twitter account that she is "extremely pained to share that the terrorists have killed Tarushi, an Indian girl who was taken hostage in the terror attack in Dhaka."
She said has spoken with the girl's father and "conveyed her deepest condolences."
President Barack Obama was briefed on the situation by his counterterrorism adviser, Lisa Monaco, a White House official told CBS News. Mr. Obama asked to be kept informed as the situation developed.
Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton also tweeted about the attacks.
Bangladesh, a traditionally moderate Muslim-majority nation, has recently seen an upsurge in militant violence. Nearly two dozen atheist writers, publishers, members of religious minorities, social activists and foreign aid workers have been slain since 2013 by attackers wielding machetes. The frequency of attacks has increased in recent months. On Friday, a Hindu temple worker was hacked to death by at least three assailants in southwest Bangladesh.
The attacks have raised fears that religious extremists are gaining a foothold in the country, despite its traditions of secularism and tolerance.
On Thursday, the State Department officially designated al Qaeda's affiliate in Bangladesh, al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, as a foreign terrorist organization. The group has claimed responsibility for the killings of U.S. citizen Avijit Roy and U.S. Embassy worker Xulhaz Manna, who was hacked to death, according to the department.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government has cracked down on domestic radical Islamists. It has accused local terrorists and opposition political parties - especially the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its Islamist ally Jamaat-e-Islami - of orchestrating the violence in order to destabilize the nation, which both parties deny.
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