THE Holey Artisan Bakery, an upscale café and restaurant overlooking a placid lake in Dhaka, was a foodie’s labour of love in a verdant corner of the chaotic capital. It offered French croissants and Manhattan-style brunches. But on the evening of July 1st, at the start of the Eid holiday week that marks the end of Ramadan, it turned into a place of terror. After Bangladeshi commandos recaptured the restaurant the following day, the scene might have been drawn from the Vietnam war—with shredded tropical greenery, armoured vehicles and 28 dead bodies, many of them expatriates.
The gang of about seven attackers, armed with semi-automatic rifles and improvised grenades, stormed past the flimsily guarded gates and fought off an initial attempt by security forces to storm the restaurant. In the course of a 12-hour siege they slit the throats of anyone who could not recite verses from the Koran. At one table were eight Japanese customers, some of who were consultants for the Japanese overseas aid organisation. Only one is thought to have made it out alive. At another table Italian garment entrepreneurs suffered a similar fate. The Islamic State (IS)...Continue reading
from Asia http://ift.tt/29eyDgF
EmoticonEmoticon