Dhaka attackers identified, went to good schools, university

As Bangladesh grapples with the first major hostage crisis in the country, amid many atrocities on liberals, writers, activists and minorities, there has been confusion about who was responsible for Friday night’s Gulshan attack.

Within few hours of the siege the Islamic State through their Amaq News Agency claimed responsibility for the attack.

In a series of message published by the SITE intel group, the ISIS claimed that the attackers belonged to their outfit.

Their messages were also the first that indicated the number of people that could have died in the attack.

In the post published by SITE, Islamic State claimed to kill 24 people and injured another 40, most of which were foreigners.

However, soon as ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, the US State Department suggested that the claim could not be verified.

According to CNN, senior US officials believe that the attack has been probably carried out by Al Qaeda in Indian Sub-continent, which was declared as a terrorist organisation by the US only a day before the attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery Cafe at Dhaka, which was located in the diplomatic quarters of the capital.

On Sunday, the ISIS’ assertion was further denied by Bangladeshi Home Minister. ‘They are members of the Jamatul Mujahadeen Bangladesh,’ Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP, referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade.

‘They have no connections with the Islamic State,’ the minister affirmed.

Late Saturday evening, the SITE published photos of five assassins involved in the Bangladesh attack on their Twitter page, identified by the Islamic State.

The names of the attackers in the undated pictures were not provided. However, another terrorism monitoring group, Terror Monitor, published the same photos and identified the attackers as Abu Omar, Abu Salmah, Abu Rahim, Abu Muslim and Abu Muharib al-Bengali.

A news18.com report suggested that all the attackers were students of Dhaka’s North South University.

In their early 20s, the group also seems to be from affluent families and went to good schools, claimed the report.

IndianExpress.com, however, cannot independently verify these images or the names provided by them.

The Friday carnage left 20 hostages and two policemen who were killed during the combat operations.

Six gunmen were also killed at the end of the 11-hour siege and one was captured alive. Around 30 people were injured and thirteen of the hostages were rescued.