tv Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown CNN July 1, 2016 9:00pm-10:01pm PDT
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♪ teaching us science... ♪ ...and how to bounce pass. ♪ by the day's end, your body is beat. ♪ ♪ your sealy hybrid gets you off your feet. ♪ you'll sleep through the night, and feel good as new. ♪ cause sealy's support is perfect for you. ♪ only the sealy hybrid has posturepedic technology to support you where you need it most. sealy. proud supporter of you. welcome back. it is more than 12 hours that we've been following an active hostage situation in bangladesh. this is cnn newsroom and that hostage crisis may be over. in the capitol dhaka, a military operation is ongoing after more than 13 hours in all. government officials say that 12 hostiages have been rescued. those are government officials
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from japan. the bangladesh government is saying very little. the terrorists were holding as many as 20 people inside of a popular cafe. the exact number is not known. atn news is reporting that a blast has been heard at that restaurant. a witness who talked to be police at the scene told us that five of the terrorists are dead. one captured and two may be unaccounted for. we aren't certain how many gun men there were. that unconfirmed information at that time, the siege started friday night. eyewitness news tell us they just heard another explosion. andrew stevens is following developments and joins us now. andrew, i'm trying to say this the best i can. some have been rescued but something is still going on. >> you're right. just to get you up to date on what you just said. that is all we know at this stage. an eyewitness news is telling cnn that there has been an
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explosion at the restaurant. this comes probably ten or 15 minutes after we got a report from local television saying there had been an explosion, it sounds like these are separate incidents. two incidents. what this could be, jonathan, is a clearing operation by the security forces. there may well be bombs still inside that building, there will be booby traps inside of the building and it is a meticulous task sweeping a building like that clean for the security forces, to make sure that a, they have -- everyone is accounted for inside of the building, no one is hiding or holding up anywhere at all and there is no danger of booby traps so it is a pain staking and slow task, but temperature does say that if the hostages are coming out, they are not obviously or it wouldn't appear to be in -- under a direct threat from the hostage takers
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themselves. what we know at this stage, this is coming from the japanese deputy chief cabinet secretary, the japanese governor has been speaking to the bangladeshi authorities because it has been reported, which we have been able to confirm that there may have been japanese citizens inside that restaurant, the what the cabinet secretary has said is they were told that 12 hostages have been rescued. two of those were foreigners, we don't at this stage know what nationality those foreigners were. we have still operating in a very gray area as far as fact at the moment is concerned. the best we ares we have and the most accountable numbers we have at the moment is there were between six and eight gun men and there were 20 or so hostages when those gunmen burst in to the restaurant at about -- between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m. local time on friday.
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of the 20 hostages, there were foreign nationals. weapon don't know how many and we don't know what nationalities were involved at this stage. there have been reports on social media. we're choosing, until we get better information, not to report that at the moment. it was a very, very popular moment for ex-patriots. this was a diplomatic community, jonathan, the cafe, where the it was a bakery by day and restaurant by night. it was popular with young bangladeshis and with the crowd. this area algoushan in dwrak ha an embassy district. in the embassy district, you have the best security of the city as far as the communities are concerned and so there would have been some security in the area. what we know is that about 9:00
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last night that six to eight gun men burst into the restaurant shouting "allahu akbar," god is great, then came a firefight with police, two police we understand were killed in the exchange. there were 40 injuries, we don't know whether they clued passes by people caught in the crossfire. militants were armed with assault weapons, hand grenades and we also are being told tl was some sort of explosive devices, whether they know they were hand grenades or something else. these were young men. it was -- it was clearly a terrorist attack. isis claimed responsibility. there has been some doubt cast over that but if this was indeed isis inspired, it doesn't necessarily fit the isis sort of operation in that isis tends to literally take no prisoners and indeed, the people themselves are usually suicide attackers,
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but extraordinarily, we have 12 hostages that have survived and an ongoing situation. two explosions in the last 15 minutes or so, so really, that is where we are. we're up to date with what we can tell you officially at this stage, jonathan. >> the odds were stacked against the security forces trying to rescue these people. do we know anything about the assault, how many forces were involved? who they were or what they did to get into the building? >> you're right. they were against it, but they apparently chose a strategy of overwhelming force. after trying to negotiate and failing, we're being told, we're being told that the attackers themselves were not interested in any form of negotiations so after trying and failing and we have that reporting a member of the government, a spokesperson
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saying they tried to negotiate with the hostage takers, after failing to do that, 11 or so hours into the siege, they attacked. they stormed the building, and in numbers, so we have it from the deputy chief of the commandos that 100 commandos were involved in that. that is an overwhelming force up against six to eight hostage takers. the commandos and police military we're being told, they moved in. there was what was described as heavy gunfire for ten to 15 minutes followed by silence. we started getting reports of hostile yangs being taken out -- hostages being taken out alive. we don't know what condition they're in, what state they're in. how badly injured if injured at all and now explosions, what looks like, and i'll say, this is speculation at this stage. what looks like the clean up
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operation going. certainly, 100 commandos going in. heavily armed commandos. monitor to point out, too, bangladesh hasn't seen anything like this before. they would not have been particularly, they wouldn't have the experience of dealing with this sort of big, large scale terror attack, so they made a call, they went in, and hostages have been rescued. >> andrew stevens live for us in hong kong working the story. jooch let's bring in sergeant gohill live in tokyo -- let's bring in sajjan gohel. they may have captured one of the gun men. how much could they learn from him. how much would they learn even if they haven't captured the gunmen from the weapons and explosives they recovered. there are survivors but now there will be an investigation. where does that start and how many assets does have? >> jonathan, the fall out from this will be significant.
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this is the biggest terrorist attack bangladesh has experienced. it had small pinprick incidents. nothing on this scale. it is important for authorities tos certain the nexus of the cell. how many layers are there. is there a connection to al qaeda and the indian sub contine continent. have some of these people been trained abroad. repair there other individuals out there potentially awaiting an activation? there is a network of terrorism inside bangladesh. one of the problems has been the government is in a state of denial that they have a terrorism problem. one hopes it will be a reality check for them and a desire to now actually dismantle the infrastructure. >> now, dismantle the infrastructure. how mu infrastructure would
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there have to be for an attack of this kind? could it be assume however many gun men that they themselves organized the attack in the entirety? >> what is really interesting is the last two years, al qaeda and isis, threw tough the affiliate bangladesh have been competing wg who they can kill more. some focused on academics, others have gone after others. following people, the attacks may not be very sophisticated but a lot of prep work went into it. certainly in this incident also, again again you see a cafe very popular with the diplomatic community was targeted deliberately. it was designed to try to get maximum attention, international focus, so it illustrates the problem. there are two elements also to
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this, that you have a group affiliated to alli qaeda, i'm sorry, that is affiliated with the isis and then one affiliated with al qaeda. one has done it and it is up to the authorities to determine which one. >> will they -- i asked that question because there is a suggestion that these may have been self appointed jihadists who basically would take on the name of one or another organization without having benefitted really from their support or training. do you think ultimately these were trained, engaged men who carried this out? >> in the case of isis and its connection to international terrorism in bangladesh, they have mentioned the country several times in their online journal. they talked about the fact that they were going to carry out more attacks, they were going to increase the tempo and they were calling for volunteers from
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bangladesh to join them. now, we have seen all over the world that it doesn't need isis to direct a plot. it can be inspired when, for example, the head of external operations from isis al adani issues a call online as he did a few weeks ago calling out supporters to bring out attacks in ramadan. we've seen this in middle east, turkey, united states and potentially now bangladesh as well. so we need to wait and see what is taking place, but it doesn't, in many ways make a difference if it was direct or inspired try is a terrorism problem. it needs to be dealt with before it keeps growing. >> sajjan gohel. thank you so much for talking with us. >> my pleasure. this is what we know. some gun men at least have been killed. some of their hostages have been rescued. and as best we can tell, the
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dhaka siege is over. the clean up continues. we'll be back after this. flo: [ ghost voice ] oooo! [ laughs ] jaaaaamie, the name your price tool can show you coverage options to fit your budget. tell me something i don't know -- oh-- ohhh! she slimed me. which i probably should've seen coming. [ laughs ] "you don't want to live with mom and dad forever, do you?" "boo!" (laughs) "i'm making smoothies!" "well...i'm not changing." "so, how can i check my credit score?" "credit karma. don't worry, it's free." "hmmmm."
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welcome back. the hostage crisis in dhaka that dragged on overnight for more than 13 hours may be over. japanese government officials say 12 hostages have been rescued. they were holding as many as 20 people inside of the popular ca cafe. the exact number isn't known. the discrepancy between the number held and rescued is not explained. atn news is reporting that a blast has been heard at the restaurant. a witness told us that five of the terrorists are dead. one captured, and two may be unaccounted for. again, we aren't certain how many gun men there were and that alone would explain the discrepan discrepancy. much of it is unconfirmed at this time. the siege started friday night
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but as best as we can tell, something has happened. it is over or very nearly so. let's get perspective from leone lakhani who has been helping us cover this from washington. this has been, i guess, a very rude awakening for bangladesh which probably thought this was not in the cards. >> absolutely. jonathan, i'm getting messages from people who are saying you know, they're relieved to hear the good news about the 12 hostages and that there are ipd occasions that this whole operation and this whole ordeal may be over soon but at the same time, they're also concerned about what this could mean. what this could mean for their every day lives. would they be seeing more attacks like this? what would this mean for security? they've never anything like this before it is completely unprecedented. the government has been adamant that they don't have any, you know, al qaeda or isis or foreign extremist cells in the country. they've blamed previous attacks,
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targeted attacks in the past couple of years or local groups, as we were hearing from your security expert, it doesn't matter whether they were local groups or foreign groups or groups inspired by foreign groups. at the end of the day, this attack was organized, it was organized gun attack and it mean epps that they have to, the government has to address that there is an extremist, problem of some sort on the ground and they have to deal with it now, jonathan. >> the target was an unlikely one. the holey artisan bakery cafe. would anyone you know have ever felt threatened or in danger going to a place like that at dhaka? >> not until today. i'm sure from now on, they would. and temporary is a high profile target. it is a bakery. after 6:00 p.m. it turns into a restaurant. it has a european feel. it has a garden. you know, coffee, espressos. it is a very, it is very unusual
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for bangladesh, for dhaka specifically. it attracted a lot of people in the area. quite an affluent area as we've been saying. a lot of ex-pats. diplomats in the area. so, no it was a very popular area, but we can see why it would be a target because it was quite high profile. you had high profile people that went there. it was a high profile neighborhood and as we've been saying it is a very densely populated city, jonathan, so anything that happens in a cafe like this which is high profile on its own because of the customers and the area and because it is in a diplomatic area, we can understand why it could be a target. until today, no one would have suspected anything like this there on the ground, jonathan. >> what about security? obviously, you can't make every restaurant or cafe in bangladesh secure, but what kind of security measures were in place around that neighborhood and how much of a second look is that going to require now?
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>> you know, there wasn't security in the sense that you know, you have road blocks or anything like that in front of caves and restaurant -- caves and restaurants until now. security has been stepped up because of the activity especially since last september when we saw an attack on an italian ex-pat and japanese citizen later on during the year. the government has stepped up security in any way because it is a diplomatic area with lots of embassies around. there is a little bit more security than usual but in terms of you know, restaurants, shops, you wouldn't see, you know, road blocks and police or anything like that in a very -- in a big way, but i suspect that may change going forward, jonathan. >> indeed it may. leone lakhani reporting from washington. thanks so much. and so after more than 13 hours, an overnight siege in the
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bangladeshi capital dhaka appears to come to an end. an intense gun fight and assault leads to the rescue it has been reported, of perhaps 10 or 12 of the hostages, most of the gun men seem to have been accounted for. most of them are said to be dead. the details, though, are sketchy and unconfirmed. we're doing our best to report them as promptly and accurately as possible. we'll be back with more right after this. a model needs vibranr to light up the runway. schwarzkopf presents color ultime. it's color blend formula locks pigment in for brilliant, vibrant colors. discover runway colors that last. color ultime, developed with claudia schiffer, from schwarzkopf.
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welcome back. it started out as a festive friday night. a meal to break the ramadan fast as the holy month comes close to a conclusion. as diners were sitting down in an affluent. the holy artisan cafe -- bakery cafe was the scene of a siege that took the lives of two police officers almost immediately and led to long hours of suspension, still not entirely over. that is the interior of the cafe, what it looks like now, we do not know. there may have been 20 people held hostage, there may have been six gunmen inside until an assault by bangladeshi commandos a short time ago apparently ended the seasoniege. witnesses close to the scene have heard explosions that are
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unexplained but 10 to 12 hostages are said to have been rescued. the gun men are mostly accounted for whether they're dead or captured or missing. we still are not entirely sure. the numbers are still uncertain. officials confirmation is still not available. andrew stevens is working the story and can fill in some of the holes. andrew, how much do we know for sure? how much are we still patching together from fragmented reports. >> i think this is the case, jonathan, where we aren't getting the information until there is an official press conference or an official briefing of some sort and that is not going to happen until that area is completely secured and obviously, they still don't feel that they have swept the restaurant sufficiently enough to declare an end to this. if you think about it, in the last half hour or so there, have been reports of not one but two explosions. we don't know what they were but it would appear that they were
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probably detonating some sort of am any objectimunition ammunitions. securing the area. it was only about a little over half hour ago that we had our own cnn journalist fareed akhmed on the ground saying there was an explosion inside of the ground. they reported a blast as well and the deputy chief commissioner of the dhaka police is saying quite clearly that this is an ongoing situation. of that news coming out in the last hour or so. so, you know, they are proceeding slowly, methodically as they have to be to secure that area 100 %. but it was -- it was a stand off for several hours before the police made the decision and that may have been on the back of the fact that they weren't
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going anywhere with negotiations, the reports were, and we had heard that, from a spokesperson for the government that they had been trying to negotiate with the hostage takers and failing so that they made the decision to actually storm the restaurant that was, say, three or four hours ago now. it was described, the actual group behind the response was the rapid action battalion force which is, it is a unit which is more involved in crime fighting, it did have equipment and they stormed that building in force. 100 or so commandos we're being told it was made up of police and military. 100 commandos storming the building. it was described as intense gun fighting inside of the building for several minutes. that is coming from the deputy director of the rapid action
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battalion. saying there was intense gun fighting followed by quite a along pause, a long silence, we then started getting reports unconfirmed from eyewitnesss who were talking to police in the area saying thag there were survivors, hostages, that is being confirmed by the japanese who have been speaking to the counterparts in bangladesh and since then there, have been these two more explosions. it looks like sweeping the area, making sthur ure it is 100 % se. once again, if you're just joining us, the siege in dhaka may be over but the security operation is apparently at last report continuing some of the hostages have said to have been rescued. some of the gunmen said to have been killed. we're awaiting confirmation or a final accounting that will reconcile the numbers that we have, but the horror of 13 hours in the hands of gunmen, is apparently over for at least 12 of of the hostages.
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welcome back. if you're just joining us, bangladeshi security forces have stormed a cafe in dhaka where gunmen had hostages. terrorists were holding as many as 20 people inside of the popular cafe in dhaka's diplomatic quarter. japanese officials now say 12 people have been rescued. a witness spoke to police and told cnn that the commando raid killed five gun men. two were unaccounted for and one is rescued. none is confirmed. they heard heavy gunfire but now
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there is an erie, unexplained silence. the drama began friday night local time when as many as eight gunmen seized the dhaka restaurant located near many embassie embassies. popular with ex-patriots. the gunmen exchanged fire with police officers, killing two. isis claimed responsibility for the siege through the media arm. another told cnn al qaeda is a possible culprit. let's get more on the security operation. steve moore has been helping us all through this. a cnn law enforcement contributor retired from the fbi. thanks so much for being with us once again. how much should we read into the fact that the hostages have been apparently rescued but we're hearing more explosions? >> i think you don't need to real a whole bunch into that at least as far as it concerns the fate of the hostages. i think that has been decided
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good or bad. what they're doing is going through and as we mentioned before, there may be booby traps, there may be explosives, literally just left behind and sometimes terrorists bring in highly unstable explosives, homemade explosives, that you know, you might find a grenade there. you're not going to want to pick it up and see if it is a booby trap and you can't just leave some of their home brewed stuff there and you can't pick it up because it will explode. so this is probably an eod situation where the ordinance disposal people are going in and getting rid of the stuff. >> how much could they learn from what has been left behind about who they were dealing with or who trained the men they were dealing with? >> you know, that is an excellent question. i've been looking at this and just marveling at the intel value. this tragedy is going to provide because you have a living
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terrorist who will be giving the bangladeshis information. the bangladeshis have aggressive interrogation techniques. we also see everything that they laid out. all of their tactics. all of the weapons, all of the explosives, so it will tell us, it is almost like a cat scan of what ever -- whatever terrorist group is ultimately determined to have conducted this because you can look in and see their capabilities and where they're getting their capabilities. grenades are easily traceable. you don't -- there is no factories, you don't buy them in a sporting good store. they come from certain military stocks, so it will tell us a lot whether it is isis or al qaeda. we'll learn. >> would you expect a wave of arrests to follow this whether for political reasons or actually because they will be discovering more about these men and their accomplices?
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>> i would expect a load of arrests, some of whom were related to this attack. in some countries, there is not, i mean, you heard they rounded of 14,000 radicals. i would say that they're probably going to be rounding up thousands this time and they will throw a wider net than you would ever see because they want top find out anybody who knows anybody who knows anybody who knows somebody who might be a terrorist and they're going to do their best to root this out. they are not encustincumbered b things that western agencies are. >> how quickly will they want to talk to the survivor as. people who have endured a terrible ordeal. will they have information that will be useful and is it important to get that quickly. >> it is important to talk to them as soon as they are able to
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give information in a lucid fashion. if they're on pain killers or drugged in any way, you want to get whatever you can but not rely completely on that, especially in numbers and faces. you're not going to show photo line ups. right now it doesn't seem to me, based on what i know to be in a circumstance where they are looking for people. they may want to talk to these people in the hospital and say could there have been six? how many were there? and show photos of the bodies and say did you see anybody besides these people? and they'll be asking what language did this guy sneak did he have an accent? they're going to be getting all of this information as quickly as they can with the caveat that a lot of these people are not going to be able to speak to them at this time. >> now, i'm going to ask you a hypothetical question. it is related to the fact as we
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know them. six hostage takers have been accounted for. there is at least one report that there were at least eight of them. if two are unaccounted for, how much trouble is bangladesh still in and what do they have to do? >> well, first of all, they have to determine if they're looking for two actual people or whether they're looking for a confused, a confused description of how many there were. i've been in several situations, i was in a school shooting when we arrived, they said it is three guys running around. it turned out to be one guy. so there are a lot of mistakes that can be made in the heat of something horrible like this, but if you're with somebody for 13 hours, you might have a pretty good idea. there may be somebody min there that actually took photo with their camera, who actually did the counts. the other thing you'll do is check every single survivor.
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terrorists have a nasty habit of posing as victims as soon as the good guys come in the door and they will lay there and put their hands up and say he was trying to kill me. this kind of stuff and so they are vetting every person in the hospital to determine whether they were in fact a victim or a hostage, if not a hostage taker. >> the operation really is ongoing. steve moore, fascinating hear hearing from you once again. although isis has claimed responsibility for the attack in dhaka. it is not confirmed who actually was behind us. a short time ago i spoke with counter terror active daveed gartenstein ross for his assessment. >> the fact that any hostages survived, the initial reports are correct is very good news, especially given that no demands were taken, especially given that the islamic state or isis is thought of as a primary
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suspect due to the fact that they claimed responsibility. it is not really a group that wants to allow anyone to survive and so that in and of itself has to be considered good news. >> does i diminish your expectation that this really was isis or that it was isis trained fighters as opposed to isis inspired followers? >> no, it doesn't. there is something interesting that happened here which is that isis has its own quasi official news agency. it tries to appear more objective but it is part of the biggest strategy. they actually claimed the attack for isis while the attack was still in progress which is not something that i've seen isis or the news agency do previously. secondly, it its isis's mo. as i mentioned before in the program, al qaeda is far stronger in bangladesh. i agree with that assessment but
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this fits isis' mo. they have enough of a presence to be able to execute an attack like this even though they don't have an overwhelming presence and al qaeda has had a much slower strategy in bangladesh, one which has been focused on attacking targets seen as kind of the acceptable minority targets. atheists, hindus or gay people and not going to war with the state. this is a declaration with the war which al qaeda seems top have avoided in bangladesh today. >> how troubled would you be by the fact that two of the gun men, based on the very, very preliminary word we've had by one police officer, two of the gun men are unaccounted for. would that be a reason why the operation wouldn't be over? they have to be sure they have all of the men holding guns on the hostages. >> as your previous guest mentioned, six to eight is a guess. we heard numbers ranges from six to eight. as long as they're not sure they've gotten all of the gun
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men. even if they don't know there are two at large. they'll consider the operation to be ongoing as they comb through to make sure they're not leaving one of the gunmen behind. beyond that, the fact that there is at least six and quite possibly more involved in this operation, it gives rise to another concern. when we've seen massive attacks like this in the past, it hasn't just been, they have not all just been attackers. they provide logistical support. the reason why i mention that is because even if all of the gunmen are killed or captured there, probably is a network behind them that helped them get to the point where they were ready to launch the attack. the bangladeshi authorities need to be looking very carefully. you've had lots of killings in bangladesh. most of them have been against single targets, but the forces of jihadism are very strong
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there and the way this attack was executed strongly suggests that it is not just the attackers who are of concern but there that there is a broader network involved in helping them to execute this. >> daveed gartenstein ross speaking to us earlier. the coverage of the dhaka siege continues after this. o: [ ghost voice ] oooo! [ laughs ] jaaaaamie, the name your price tool can show you coverage options to fit your budget. tell me something i don't know -- oh-- ohhh! ahh! this is probably more of a breakroom activity. ya think? ♪
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than 13 hours. the hostage taking is over, the security operation continues. japanese government officials say 12 hostages have been rescued. terrorists were holding as many as 20 people inside of a popular cafe in dhaka's diplomatic quarter. the exact number is still not known. atn news is reporting that a blast has been heard at the restaurant. a witness who talked to police at the scene told them five of the terrorists are dead. one captured, two could be unaccounted for. we're not certain how many gunmen there were. all of this is unconfirmed information. the siege started friday night, if it is over, it ended 13 hours later saturday morning. let's go to c in fn's andrew stevens following developments from hong kong. we're learning more from tokyo of all places. >> that's right, jonathan. we should point out that it is not confirmed that there were 20 hostages either. that is still at best an
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informed guess. we've been getting the 20 number from a staff, an employee at the bakery who managed to flee soon after the attackers struck. we're getting new information coming from tokyo, from the japanese prime minister, he was door step -- he gave an impromptu interview on saturday morning and he did say then, he admitted there was a possibility that there are japanese nationals among those hostages. we know there are foreigners but we don't know who at this staple. the deputy chief cabinet secretary earlier confirmed that 12 hostages had been freed and two were foreign nationals but we don't know or they didn't say what nationalities they were. so we're slowly piecing together what the japanese side of this
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is. we're now hearing from the chief cap net secretary. there is a high possibility that japanese were among those hostages. we don't know whether they have -- whether they survived or not at this stage but it is still very difficult to get a true picture of who was inside of the cafe at the time. we know, as i said, roughly 20 people were there. it was a mix of ex-patriot workers there and local people as well. this is a very popular place, particularly popular among young bangladeshis. it is called the holey artisan bakery. it is a european style eatery if you like in the dap mattic enclave -- diplomatic enclave. it did attract that sort of clientele and it was 8:30, between 8:30 and 9 when the attackers struck. people would have been breaking fast then, we've heard from our
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other guests, leone lakhani, it does look like increasingly that japanese nationals were in the restaurant. were in the holey artisan bakery when those attackers struck. >> what is your best information about what has happened to the hostages since? >> well, all we know at this stage, all we can confirm is that they have -- some have been taken to the hospital. we don't know what condition they're in. we know that they were -- they were taken out, this is, again, from the japanese. they were rescued. they were taken out from, from the cafe and taken to a hospital but we had been told in the storming of the restaurant, the gunfire was described by the
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deputy director as rapid action battalion. the people who actually went in to storm that restaurant and remember, there were about 100 people involved in the storming of that restaurant, so the gunfire was described as intense at the time and that went on for perhaps ten minutes or so. intense gun fighting is a direct quote from the deputy director of that reaction force, so that was intense gunfire while the hostages were still inside of the building. we don't know what the state of the injuries are. we don't know, sort of who survived and who hasn't. all we can say at the moment is that the bangladeshi authorities have confirmed to the japanese authorities that 12 hostages were rescued of 20 who were inside at the time. >> to complete the chronology, there was the intense gunfire, silence, and then, what? one explosion? two explosions? still unexplained?
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>> yes, intense gunfire, then reports, you heard them first from eyewitness news on the ground, they had been speaking to the police who were surrounding the -- who had cordoned off the area. it was impossible to get eyes on with the eyewitnesss there. there was a heavy police presence. we were hearing from eyewitnesss saying they had been told, there that there had been any attack and that hostage takers had been killed and then it all went quiet and then we started hearing reports of an explosion, local tv started to report an explosion was heard followed by our own man on the ground, fareed akmed confirming a second explosion ten minutes afterwards. what we assume at this stage which has been sort of supported by the experts is that this was much more likely a cleaning up
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operation, a sweeping securing of the space, getting rid of any uncontained ordinance, any booby traps that is correct sort of thing. so that is where we are at the moment. it does now appear to have been dow jones have been completed. it is over. we're waiting obviously for official confirmation of that, but that is where we are at this stage, jonathan. >> andrew stevens in hong kong. >> and we'll be right back with more, right after this. whatcha' doin? just checking my free credit score at credit karma. what the??? you're welcome. i just helped you dodge a bullet. but i was just checking my...
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the siege in dhaka ends apparently with an assault. security forces storming a cafe in their country's capital where gunmen seized hostages some 13 hours earlier. police say the operation is ongoing. here is the latest. the terrorists were holdings as many as 20 people inside that popular cafe in dhaka's diplomatic quarter. the exact number is still unknown. the sri lankan government says its citizens were among the rescued hostages. a total of 12 captives have been freed. a witness spoke to police and told cnn that the commando rate killed one of the gunmen while two were unaccounted for. none of this is confirmed. witnesses told cnn they heard heavy gunfire, but now there is silence. the drama began friday night local time when as many as eight gunmen seized the dhaka
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restaurant. the gunmen exchanged fire with police and threw explosives, killing two officers. at least 40 other people were wounded. isis has claimed responsibility for the siege through its media arm. a u.s. official told cnn al qaeda is also a possible culprit because it has a history of attacks in dhaka. touching now to other news, a u.s. congressman says a well known terrorist from russia organized the attacks on istanbul's airport this week. one of the victims was the chief of pediatrics at its military hospital, a professor of medicine. the men who orchestrated this horror and unleashed it on istanbul's airport tuesday may now be known. two of the suicide bombers who
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carried out the plot are being named by turkey's state news agencies. it reports rakim bulgarov and vadim osmanov carried out the attacks. as for the man who directed the operation, an isis lieutenant from chechnya is likely behind with the plot. >> he traveled to syria on many occasions and became one of the top lieutenants in the minister of war for voice operations. >> chatayev is notorious in terror networks going by the anymore name akhmed "one arm." >> used that fact to argue when he went to europe to get refugee status. he said i had been tortured by the russians. the u.s. placed him on the terrorist list just last year. but he's been around for a long time. >> investigators are digging in
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trying to find out more about the men brandsishing farms through the airport. turkey's president condemning their actions. >> terror and terrorists do not have.region, do not have nations, do not have a motherland. we are going to fight them with our soldiers, with our police and with our village guards. >> 24 people, including 15 foreigners have now been detained according to state media. police are asking about the security image, showing the three men believed to be suspects. turkey authorities believe the three attackers holed.up for a month in an apartment in istanbul. the three men, they say, came directly from raqqa. the investigation unfolds, families are burying their loved ones. >> this man's son reportedly
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joined isis as a medic last year. a family friend says bayud had been in istanbul to help negotiate his son's rescue from the terror group only to have extremists take his life instead. cnn. as families mourns those lost in the attacks, we have the heartbreaking story of one of the youngest victims of the bombing. a young palestinian girl who escaped with her life, but lost a parent. >> 3 yooerldz drafi survived the horror of tuesday's attack. her mother, nisrine did not. no one can explain to her what happened or where her mother is. members of the palestinian community are taking care of her, keeping her distracted and smiling. her father can barely speak. he lost his wife. his friend hamed lost his wife, too. hamed is still in hospital in
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critical condition. his 3-year-old son is on life support. the two palestinian families arrived from saudi arabia where they lived for a short holiday in istanbul. as they prepared to leave the airport, the terrorist struck. rafif was in her mother's arms when her mother was shot and left for dead. they can't say they came to fight military oppressors. they walked among us. they can see children. the family, like so many here, are muslim. poem who claim to be muslims with no mercy. i will teach my daughter not to hate, to love everyone. i will give her the best life, he says. on thursday night, maron
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returned to the airport to put his wife's coffin on a plane. he led an islamic prayer for the dead. he promised he would take her home to the palestinian territories to celebrate the muslim festival next week with their family. instead, they were gather to mourn her. cnn, istanbul. >> israel says its aircraft have targeted hamas sites in gas after rocket fire from the palestinian territory hit an israeli city near its border. the jerusalem post reports the rocket hit an empty preschool. it said no casualties were reported, but the building sustained what it called significant damage. the rocket attack followed israel sealing off the west bank following a series of attacks on israelis there, including the stabbing death of an israeli-u.s. teen in the
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we continue with our ongoing breaking news in the siege in bangladesh. hello, everyone. i'm natalie allen live in cnn center in atlanta. thank you for staying with us. after more than 13 hours, the hostage siege at a cafe in the capital city of dhaka may finally be over. japanese government officials say 12 host aemgs have been rescued. sri lanka authorities say two of their nationals were freed. we're hearing most of the terrorists are dead. up to eight gunmen were holding as many as 20 people inside a popular cafe in dhaka's diplomatic quarter. we don't know yet exactly how many people were there. local news outlets and witnesses have been reporting they heard
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