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B8 Relatives of victims take their remains DHAKA—The relatives of the foreign hostages murdered in a Bangladeshi restaurant were in Dhaka Monday to take their loved ones’ bodies home as authorities made the first arrests over the killings. Many were in tears as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina laid wreaths on the coffins of those killed in the siege at an upmarket cafe in the capital, by far the deadliest in a spate of recent attacks that have caused international alarm. They included nine Italians, seven Japanese, a US citizen and a 19-year-old Indian student. Witnesses say the perpetrators of the attack, which the Islamic State group has claimed, spared the lives of Muslims while herding foreigners to their deaths, killing many with machete-style weapons. Among the mourners at the ceremony in a Dhaka stadium was Muksedur Rahman who described slain Italian textile trader Nadia Benedetti as a “great human being” who had worked to help the Bangladeshi survivors of acid attacks. “Nadia Benedetti had been working in Bangladesh for more than 20 years,” Rahman, a colleague of the Italian, told AFP. “I can’t believe she had to die like this. We have to stand against such terrorism right now.” Italy’s ambassador said Friday night’s attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe was “unprecedented” and promised his country’s full support in tackling a rise in Islamist militancy in Bangladesh. “This unprecedented attack is also an attack on the very identity of Bangladesh,” Mario Palma told reporters at the ceremony. “You deserve all the cooperation from your friends all over the world who supported you for your struggle to achieve independence.” The government said the bodies of the Italians and Japanese victims would be handed over to diplomats later Monday before being flown home. The Indian student’s body was also being flown back to her home town later on Monday US Secretary of State John Kerry offered Washington’s support in a telephone call to Hasina, whose government has been unable to stop a wave of Islamist attacks on foreigners and religious minorities in officially secular but mostly Muslim Bangladesh. AFP
CESAR BARRIOQUINTO EDITOR
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WORLD Iraqis mourn over 200 killed in suicide attack BAGHDAD—Iraqis on Monday mourned the more than 200 people killed by a jihadist-claimed suicide car bombing that was among the deadliest ever attacks in the country.
Performance. Classical crossover star Jackie Evancho performs during A Capitol FourthRehearsals at the US Capitol’s West Lawn on July 3, 2016, in Washington, DC. AFP
The blast, which the Islamic State group said it carried out, hit the Karrada district early Sunday as the area was packed with shoppers ahead of this week’s holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. The attack sparked anger among Iraqis at the government’s inability to keep them safe even as its forces push IS back, and prompted Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to announce efforts to address the longstanding flaws in Baghdad security measures. Abadi’s office announced three days of national mourning for the victims of the attack and he vowed to “punish” the perpetrators of the blast. The attack, which security and medical officials told AFP killed at least 213 people and wounded more than 200, came a week after the country’s forces recaptured Fallujah from IS, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the jihadist group’s control. The blast sparked infernos in nearby buildings, and emergency personnel and family and friends of the victims were still searching on Monday for those missing following the explosion. A member of the civil defense forces said it would take days to recover the bodies of the victims. Hussein Ali, a 24-year-old former soldier, said six workers at his family’s shop were killed, their bodies so badly burned they could not be identified. “I will return to the battlefront. At least there, I know the enemy so I can fight him. But here, I don’t know who I’m fighting,” Ali told AFP. IS issued a statement claiming responsibility for the suicide bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of “ongoing security operations”. The jihadist group said the blast targeted Iraq’s Shiite Muslim majority, whom the Sunni extremists consider heretics and frequently attack in Baghdad and elsewhere. UN Iraq envoy Jan Kubis condemned the “cowardly and heinous act of unparalleled proportions,” calling on authorities to bring those responsible to justice. Officials said another explosion in the Shaab area of northern Baghdad killed at least one person and wounded four on Sunday, but the cause of the blast was disputed. Bombings in the capital have decreased since IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, with the jihadists apparently more concerned with operations elsewhere. AFP
Bangladeshi rich kids who grow up to be jihadists DHAKA—Well-educated and hailing from wealthy families, the gunmen who killed 20 hostages in a Bangladesh cafe defy the increasingly outdated stereotype of jihadists from poor backgrounds who have been radicalized in madrassas. Six young men were shot dead Saturday at the end of the all-night siege in a Dhaka cafe claimed by the Islamic State group. One may have been an inno-
cent bystander, but among the remaining five are a graduate of Bangladesh’s leading private university, an 18-year-old student at an elite school and the son of a ruling party official. As jihadist groups such as IS focus their recruitment efforts on disenfranchised middle class youth, government efforts to eradicate extremism become ever more complicated.
“They are all highly educated young men and from welloff families,” Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP. Asked why they would have become jihadists, Khan said: “It has become a fashion.” While the Bangladesh government has continued to deny IS has a foothold in the country, the group claimed the attack and its associated news agency, Amaq,
posted pictures of the five gunmen posing with weapons. Similarly, in militancy-ravaged Pakistan, the government denies that the international jihadist network has a formal presence in the country. But a Pakistani security official recently told AFP that the authorities had busted several IS recruitment cells focused on a similar affluent demographic.
Taj Hashmi, a Bangladeshi who teaches security studies at the Austin Peay State University in the United States, pointed out that many of the Saudi hijackers behind the September 11 attacks were also from wealthy families. But he says that middle-class youth have been providing Islamist terror groups with foot soldiers since long before the emergence of IS. AFP