A throng of gunmen stormed a Bangladesh restaurant in the capital’s diplomatic zone Friday night, taking foreign hostages and fueling a bloody standoff with police, officials and witnesses said. At least three police officers were wounded in a shootout after the attackers seized the Holey Artisan Bakery café in the capital city of Dhaka, police said. The gun-toting group, which consisted of as many as nine men, busted in around 9:30 p.m. local time and took customers and staffers hostage, local media reported. Sumon Reza, a kitchen staffer who escaped the chaos, said the men chanted "Allahu Akbar" — “God is Great” in Arabic — as they launched the attack.
A huge contingent of security guards cordoned off the area around the restaurant, trading gunfire with the attackers who set off bombs and exchanged gunfire with the security officials.
The men are still barricaded inside two hours later, although it's unclear how many hostages are in the café with them. Several of those trapped inside are believed to be foreign citizens, said Benazir Ahmed, director general of the elite anti-crime force Rapid Action Battalion or RAB.
"Some derailed youths have entered the restaurant and launched the attack," Ahmed said. "We have talked to some of the people who fled the restaurant after the attack. We want to resolve this peacefully. We are trying to talk to the attackers, we want to listen to them about what they want."
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