Grenade throwing assailants are exchanging gunfire with policemen from a Spanish restaurant in a diplomatic area in Dhaka, Bangladesh, one country that is very secular.The assailants seem to have held dozens of people hostage inside the restaurant on a Friday evening, CNN say.
The assailants are throwing grenades at police, a source at the scene said.
“An unknown number of people are trapped,” Gulshan police station duty officer Sayedur Rahman said.
Police bomb disposal unit was on standby waiting to go in. Two people are reported dead and more than 40 are wounded.
The restaurant is a bakery during the day and a Spanish restaurant at night. According to the the restaurant owner, about 6 to 8 gunmen stormed the place. He also estimates that about 20 guests are trapped inside.
Bangladesh, which is a tolerant open society, has witnessed a series of attacks by those attracted to extreme Islam. There has been about 30 attacks of moderates and liberals recently. The ISIS brand of ideology is spreading across the country and the entire region even though it does not have a presence there.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, which happened the same day a priest was hacked to death also by extremists.
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