Black Friday in Bangladesh as gunmen kill 20 hostages in Dhaka

[According to latest updates, 20 civilians and 6 militants have been killed in Dhaka hostage siege: Bangladesh army.]

Not matching the scale of 26/11 Mumbai attacks of 2008, but Dhaka experienced the global face of headline grabbing high voltage radical extremism for the first time in decades.

About 8-9 gunmen stormed its Gulshan area, a posh diplomatic enclave, carried out two explosions and killed at least five as they lay siege on Holey Artisan Bakery, an upmarket restaurant frequented by foreigners.

At least 60 people, including an Indian, were trapped inside and taken hostage as the gunmen, who shouted Allahu Akbar as per Bangladeshi news channels, opened fire and killed about five in the ensuing bloodbath.

With the US Embassy in Dhaka just a mile away from the scene of siege, there were cautionary tweets and announcements sent out by the Embassy, which quickly grabbed international attention. As gun battle waged, Bangladesh Rapid Action Battallion as well as the police, particularly from the nearby Banani station, exchanged heavy firing with the extremists, who, it is likely, have allegiance to ISIS.  

While Bangladesh has been in the news for a series of extremely gory blogger deaths - rationalists, atheists and progressives being hacked to death by fundamentalists belonging to the notorious Ansarullah Bangla Team, which posts Facebook threats before striking, till date there hasn't been a coordinated terror attack which was witnessed on the night of July 1, 2016.

This attack, quickly following the explosions at Istanbul's Ataturk airport, and following major terror attacks in Paris, Brussels and other global cities, now brings Dhaka into the circuit of secular metropolises plagued by global Islamic terrorism, in addition to facing homegrown religious and racial divides. 

"Our commandos have stormed into the restaurant. Intense gunfighting on," Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, a deputy director at the Bangladesh Rapid Action Battalion force, told reporters. ISIS, which has claimed the attacks, even tweeted photos of what it said were dead foreigners killed in the attack on Holey Bakery, where gunmen were holed up and armed with assault rifles and grenades.

Noted and exiled author - Taslima Nasreen, who was forced to flee radical extremists in Bangladesh, posted a series on tweets on the attack, questioning the Sheikh Hasina government's inability to prevent such a large-scale assault despite claiming to have cracked down on fundamnetalists.

It must be noted that the Hasina government had ensured that the 1971 war crime tribunal was conducted and Jamaat leaders, who perpetrated assassinations and rapes at that time, were brought to book in a much publicised turn of events. Moreover, Hasina regime has also arrested thousands with possible terror (Jamaat, ISIS) connection, but Nasreen remains unconvinced on the government's intention as well as capability to rein the terrorists in.

It was a scene of absolute shock and horror in Dhaka's Gulshan area meanwhile, with the police and security forces putting up a tough fight against the militants who were clearly in a fight-to-death mode. Latest reports suggest that the operation is finally over, with about five terrorists neutralised and 20 hostages freed.

Combing operations are still on, according to Bangladeshi news sources.

Jason Burke, long time South Asia correspondent at the Guardian (now stationed in Africa) has the following to say: "Until now, the violence has taken the form of largely low-tech attacks involving small groups of militants or even individuals armed with knives or small arms. Friday’s attack, however, was an operation of a much greater magnitude. Early reports suggest at least five gunmen, armed with sufficient automatic weapons and grenades to repel at least one assault by local police." 

"Western intelligence have been nervous about a major operation for at least 18 months. Indications of a complex plan to attack a diplomatic ball last year prompted much alarm – and pressure from western capitals on Dhaka to move effectively against the militant networks existing in the unstable south Asian nation."

Thus Jason Burke corroborates Taslima Nasreen's claims and says that the Sheikh Hasina government has been in denial about Bangladesh becoming a hotbed of breeding Islamic radicalism, with her Awami League's tendency to pin every communal and violent episode on political rivals and hardliners such as BNP.

"Instead of cracking down on the hardline groups which encouraged, or even sponsored, the attacks on local bloggers and minorities, the government effectively made concessions to the conservatives, with the prime minister implying those who had insulted religious sensibilities were in part responsible for their fate. Bloggers seeking police protection were ignored," Burke writes.

Similarly, Ishan Tharoor, foreign affairs correspondent at the Washington Post says that ISIS has claimed (through social media) responsibility for more atatcks in Bangladesh than it has had in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Tharoor writes, "These include the killing of Italian and Japanese expats and multiple strikes on Shia Muslims. The extremist organization had called on its fighters and proxies to launch such strikes on soft targets during the holy month of Ramadan around the workd. The government, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has struggled to come to grips with the issue. It has rebuffed any suggestion that the Islamic State has a foothold in the country. And it has sought to deflect blame for its perceived mishandling of the security crisis." 

Tharoor adds, "Last month, a senior minister chose to pin the escalation in violence on a vague Israeli conspiracy rather than domestic problems. In police crackdowns, authorities have rounded up some 12,000 people, but most of those detained have been petty criminals and supporters of opposition parties. Counterterrorism experts say the Hasina government has expended more energy consolidating its position and suppressing its opponents than tackling the spread of Islamist violence in the country. A recent report from the International Crisis Group argued that a skewed judicial system and the heavy-handed rule of Hasina's ruling Awami League party, which is traditionally secular and center-left, was laying the foundation for further militant violence and unrest."

What has been brewing for months and years now is now finally out there: a terror-ravaged Dhaka, scarred by the violence it had turned a blind eye to. Twitter obviously reacted to the unfolding drama with speculations and reflections as well as specious and spurious Islamophobia. However, most stood in solidarity with Dhaka, the latest big city that faced the brunt of a death cult called the Islamic State.