this really has hit close to home. this is somewhere i take my son. we don't feel unsafe when we are there. so this is completely the dark horse that something like this is going on in our neighborhood. >> nazia tareq is there at the moment in dhaka. thank you for checking in with us. appreciate it. and we'll continue our continuing msnbc coverage as we cross into the next hour. 4:00 eastern time. that means it's the middle of the night in bangladesh. 2:00 a.m. there in dhaka where there is an active hostage situation nearing its fifth hour right now. as many asinine gunmen taking siege of a popular eatery. it happened 9:20, 10:00 their time this evening in a

diplomatic zone in the capital city of bangladesh. police believe there are as many as 40 hostages. that's the number police are using inside that bakery. you just heard a resident use an even higher number. they are initial and unfortunately all over the place. attackers were armed with guns and bombed as they entered. they have exchanged gunfire. the isis-affiliated news agency said isis is taking responsibility for the attack. lucy kavanaugh joins me now from our london newsroom. we are getting numbers all over the place. the resident said she thought there might be as many as 80 people. >> absolutely, kate. the only certainty is that there is no certainty. it is an evening of absolute terror in dhaka, gulshan neighborhood. a 15-minute walk roughly to the

u.s. embassy. sources of mine based in this area said it is considered to be one of the safest spots in the country. there are check points around the neighborhood. that shattered when eight, possibly nine stormed the holey artisan bakery. the suspects are heavily armed. we hear they opened fire. it appears to be an active hostage situation. these kinds of diplomatic enclaves is a close-knit, tight community. a lot of people likely to be hanging out at the very few spots that are available for foreigners and westerners to hang out. isis did claim responsibility for these. we're hearing that from other security sources as well. the u.s. state department saying no americans in their chief of mission involved in that attack. but the embassy is still trying desperately to account for other

americans, private citizens who may have been in the area, living in dhaka. another official in washington describing this as very fluid, very live. it is likely to change as the hours go on. these have not been quiet times at all for bangladesh. this is a moderate majority muslim country. it has seeing a lot of worrying uptick. an msnbc terror analyst joins us now. leif, you monitor claims of responsibility, the discourse, the chatter that's out there. what are you seeing and hearing? >> so far as was mentioned recently, affiliated media with isis this was performed by commandos. they are armed with rifles, handguns, as well as explosives.

while it is not clear, the situation is still fluid, it appears the individuals may be connected by isis or inspired by isis where they have taken the initiative on their own. but it appears more likely that the fingers are pointing towards isis than al qaeda. >> leif, this is different than when you and i spoke in the middle of everything that was happening in turkey. isis never officially came out and claimed responsibility. why do you think they are doing it tonight? >> on the one hand, they are targeting this place because it is frequented by foreigners. the turkey attacks targeted mainly muslims. though it is not clear whether the turkey attack with isis was directly involved in that

attack. in this specific case, they are trying to reassert themselves and say we have a bigger operational network than previously thought. >> is this claimed through the isis affiliated news agency considered credible by you and your organization? >> it is considered somewhat credible. we are still waiting for an official statement from isis central media. it has not been released yet. if it indeed was released by isis, they would not release a statement until the hostage crisis is over. >> thank you for checking in with us as always. appreciate it. >> you have been talking again to the doctor who have been with us for a while. a doctor who works at one of the hospitals closest to the scene. >> yeah. they are receiving their fair share of the victims of this. he was telling us a short while ago they have received at least two dozen people that are being

treated. the number is either 25 or 26. the majority of them are police officers, as we are told from this doctor. six are in critical condition. two have died. police officers. he has not commented yet on any fatalities as a result of the civilians. they are treating some, but they are not saying right now if they have any western fatalities or civilian fatalities for that matter. as i understand it from him, six are in critical condition. police officers. we have also heard from our own producer who has been speaking to law enforcement officials there that four officers have been killed. and this doctor has confirmed at least two -- >> maybe they were treated at that hospital. >> he did tell us he has reports of other evacuees or casualties have been taken to the bhaka medical college, slightly further away from there they are. at the location where he is they have treated 25 people, six in critical condition. two police officers have died

>> to recap, it sounds like mostly police officers coming into the hospital. >> at this stage, mostly police officer. we know there are hostages. maybe the civilians were not able to get out. maybe some were trapped. maybe some were not. maybe they don't need immediate medical care. >> it could be good news. it could be they got out. >> right. there are all kinds of various numbers going around. this is at least what he is telling us at this point. a mmon, thank you. iran analyst at the national security network and century foundation in washington, d.c. thanks for being with us. >> glad to be with you. but i'm actually in houston. >> forgive us. we are juggling a lot of things. bad information.

you have long expertise there. what are your immediate thoughts about something of this magnitude happening on a friday night? >> the last friday of the month of ramadan, the holiest month in the muslim calendar. they fast from sunrise to sunset for 30 days. yesterday hezbollah canceled the parade the last friday in the month of ramadan because they were worried about sunni, isis retaliatation there. in the month of ramadan, after they break their fast, people go to cafes. people get-together. they participate in festivities. for hostages to take hostagings during the month of ramadan, the last friday, is symbolic. it fits with spectacular amounts

of terror to get more recruits. this general, kate, there are three big sort of isis-related terror attacks. there are either attacks controlled, coordinated and planned by isis central. that's isis in syria and iraq. just like what you saw in istanbul, turkey, the past couple days. and isis regional. affiliates that may not be in direct contact at all times with isis central. but they do carry out attacks in places such as afghanistan, pakistan, or northern africa for that matter. and then there is a lone wolf or isis-inspired attacks. it is not clear whether this was isis central, isis regional, or a group of radicals in bangladesh inspired by isis trying to carry out an attack.

it is a pretty sophisticated terror attack and operation in bangladesh. >> why bangladesh? would it just be the opportunities there? they have some people interested? or could it be strategic? >> a couple of reasons. first and foremost, isis would like to say they have a far reach, not only just in the mid east in iraq, syria, lebanon and parts of the arab world, but the nonmiddle eastern parts of the muslim map. it is a few hundred miles away it doesn't mean conservative muslims are violent. but we have seen a rise in

secular bloggers, lgbt. and and hindus were attacked to death. there's opportunity and also trying to claim there is strategic depth has not decreased because of battle field losses in iraq and syria. and not to try to be the bad bearer of -- the bearer of bad news, but this is not going to go away any time soon. these sorts of attacks, especially those solely inspired by isis or other radical organizations are going to be there. we will do a better job in terms of intelligence gathering, and in co-op indication are allies to, a, crack down on their sources of funding, some of our allies are sort of culprits of

that. and, b, making sure that our information is trance mated to get a better foot hold on the region. thank you for being with us. appreciate your time and your perspective. joining me now msnbc retired atf special agent in charge, jim kavanaugh who has been with us the last several hours. jim, you have been watching everything unfold. we're looking a lot tape, not live video. there is a reason for that. jim, i know you're intimately familiar with this. we believe things are happening in real-time they don't want us to see in real-time. >> right, kate. it looks they had an attempted emergency assault, the authorities did, and that was repelled with the number of officers killed. two to four. we have had different reports. so they were in the middle of a gun fight, as you reported

earlier, not so much a negotiation. we'll have to see if they can get that stabilized. you had a great discussion with a national security expert. we can see the situation there. all of us who pay attention to these things. certainly you or i could talk about the attacks in bangladesh going back the last year or two. bloggers, journalists, we all witnessed the murders. that is page 10. this is page 1 above the fold today. this is the way terrorists work. they want that attention and the theater. they do all of these one off killings in hacking a cleric to death or killing a blogger. a lot of news. it spills out into the international media. but the average person on the street doesn't even notice it. but this changes here when you are holding hostages and you drag it out. they get theater.

of course the mind inside the actors is always of interest. kate, i would not be surprised to say some of these actors today may be responsible for some of those prior 30 or so murders the last two years. it would not be surprising at all to find that out. >> so if you're tactically dealing with a situation with dozens of hostages and it's after 2:00 in the morning now, what are you doing? >> right. well, you're trying to get where apparently the officers were to point of contact. you're trying to get as close as you can to them like with a wall separating you. the further your distance away the less chance you have to be able to rescue them. you try to get to a point of contact. you try to stabilize it there, try to negotiate. it's going to be very difficult with terrorists. but it may buy you some time. some people are released. they were released at the moscow theater.

at the school where 385 people died. but still people were released. so there is always a chance people could be released in negotiation. and you work for that while you're planning your forces to get in place to do an assault. but with seven to nine actors with rifles and machine guns, it is difficult to make an assault. their weapons will penetrate your vest. they can kill hostages before you get in there. they have improvised hand grenades they have been tossing at authorities. it is a very, very difficult situation. it could result in multiple deaths of police, criminal actors, and hostages before it's over. thank you for your time staying with us here. we'll have you hold on again if you don't mind. steve clemmons is with us. steve, you mentioned this earlier. there have been so many attacks.

it seems like we're covering them every few days. i don't know what to compare it to. but it feels like things are popping up when you're not looking. how do western authorities cope with that? >> we're going to have to become much more integrated. there are big efforts in this way. john kerry was just here responding to the istanbul attacks. isis is losing land and territory in syria and iraq. you and i talked about that. i said we have to be very, very careful with that model of thinking it is all about land. because isis has an ability today to either activate buried terror cells within a country or inspire others. and there is a whack-a-mole problem where in the world something of this complexity and scale, which isis has allegedly just taken credit for, will pop up somewhere else. you look at north africa, libya. then you move to other countries

like indonesia and think about isis there. some of the activities with radical islamic groups in the philippines. so you have gone from a theater where the united states defines this as iraq and syria problem. but it is a global problem. as long as you have money people out there to inspire, and a grudge about how one portion of the community feels about the state of affairs in the world, we will see things like we are seeing unfold in dhaka today. >> steve, thank you so much for all of your time this afternoon. i don't think we'll let you off the hook as this conditions into hour five or six. we will take another brief break. when we come back, we'll talk to a journalist on the ground in dhaka. help me! (doorbell) mom, check this out. wow. swiffer sweeper, and dusters. this is what i'm talking about. look at that. sticks to this better than it sticks to lulu.

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back now with our breaking news coverage out of bangladesh. if you're just joining us, this the scene at a bakery restaurant this evening on a friday night, attacked by numerous gunmen, perhaps seven to eight people, who have now taken hostages and holding the hostages in the restaurant. there have been reports of gun fights between the hostage takers and the police. and we have reports from hospitals locally there are at least a couple dozen people who have been injured. the planning editor of the dhaka tribune is not far from where all of this is happening and he joins me now. can you hear me? >> i can. hello. >> can you tell me what you know on the ground? we heard reports that police were trying to get closer,

moving in, and that there was a firefight? >> so let me give a little bit of context. it is about 2:25 in the morning. 25 minutes past 2:00 a.m. this started at 8:45 last night. so we are going into the sixth hour of this showdown. there are reports that attackers entered this bakery/restaurant. they opened fire. explosives were heard. a short time after that, 10:00, 10:30, police got to the site and they have been there since. the s.w.a.t. team has been there since 10:30. there are two confirmed deaths so far, two policemen.

one shot, one succumbed to injuries at the hospital. most of the people are believed to be foreigners. so that's what we have. police have not attempted to enter the restaurant as far as we know. the head of the battalion earlier said around midnight said the intention will be to try to resolve this as peacefully as possible. so the police have surrounded the site. we have no confirmation of any reports that the police and hostages are in agreement with each other. we don't know if they have made contact.

>> this is such good reporting. you have much more information than we have been able to get from this far away. just to make sure we are clear on a couple of things you said. importantly, you are saying as far as you know, police have not attempted to enter the premises. police are outside surrounding, but haven't made any contact that you can tell? >> not that i am aware. it is possible they have not given that information to the media. i'm not saying they haven't made contact. we don't know for sure. we can't confirm that contact has been made. the number we have is 20 civilians. two dozen people are in hospitals. there are 100 personnel on the

ground. ambulances on site. a s.w.a.t. team is there. a very strong show of force. but i think the objective is not to push this to the point where there is an exchange of fire. that is the impression we're getting. but at this point it is impossible to say for sure exactly what's happening >> right. >> the other thing i would like to share is -- sorry. >> no. go ahead. >> the intelligence group which generally follows sort of radical extremist chatter on the internet, she posted on twitter i believe, she tweeted that this attack was an isis attack. >> yeah. we have reported that there's a claim of responsibility through the isis affiliated news agency.

correct. let me ask you one more thing -- >> yeah, sure. >> i'm sorry. there is a delay on the line. but you're suggest that perhaps the police at 2:25 in the morning are just waiting this out. they're waiting for the hostage takers to tire? >> right. i assume. again, i can't say for sure exactly what's happening 500 yards in. i don't know if there have been negotiations. it is impossible to say. earlier, officials had told us they don't want to talk too much to the press. they are watching this unfold on tv as well. so they want a little bit of privacy so they can do what they can to try to resolve this. beyond that, we can't say anything for sure. >> understandable. just finally, sief, do you know

the nationalities of the foreigners inside that restaurant? does anyone know where they're from? >> right. we have been trying to piece that together. i cannot say anything officially. >> okay. >> what i can say is at least three of the people have been able to figure out. three of the people are foreigners. we're not sure exactly what the situation is. we know that some foreign nationals are safe now. members of the culinary at the restaurant. >> so there were people that were able to run out of the restaurant? >> right. we know that one italian chef is safe.

and the other an argentine. we have some other names here. i won't mention names. we don't want to say until we can verify is and confirm that this is the case. >> of course. absolutely. >> asif islam, thank you for your reporting. we really appreciate it. and let me go now to nbc news producer who has been with us throughout the night with new information. raj, what have you been able to learn? >> hi, kate. again, from the front lines of this siege, speaking to one of the officers who is on the ground there outside this bakery.

it started more than a couple of hours now. we are hearing from the commissioner, one of the most high ranking police officials in dhaka, the capital city, has also been killed. his name is amongst the four police officers trying to engage these seven to eight militants. i'm also being told that things are going into negotiation mode now. and the police official told me that that negotiations have to be based on conditions. we want a decent settlement. conditions will have to be met. and an interesting story about at least one hostage who was able to escape. he identified him as a local who took off from one of the outer corners. police officials in the area went outside their barricaded positions. that's when they were attacked by grenades from the first floor

of the restaurant. that's what i'm told. many of the casualties off the dhaka police were sustained. the police officials also tells me, kate, that there's been no attempt to do a forced rescue yet. the condition is stable. the remember cops are on the outer cordone. and the special cops the inner cordone. i was told that when they stormed into the restaurant they were shouting god is great in arabic. >> waj, thank you for all that information. again, just to recap from waj khan in nearby pakistan both of them telling us no attempts so far by the authorities who have been gathered there for better than four hours. they have not made an attempt to

go inside the restaurant. the reporting now is they have not tried to force a rescue of these hostages. but indeed they are there. they have cordoned off a ring around the restaurant. obviously they're trying to negotiate some kind of peaceful resolution. a very tense situation. as we take another quick break, breaking news coverage on the other side. real is touching a ray. amazing is moving like one. real is making new friends. amazing is getting this close.

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still watching breaking news out of bangladesh. a restaurant where it is frequented by ex-pats and bangladeshis has been attacked. that's a look at the restaurant before the attack. it happened 9:30, 10:00 local time. it's now after 2:00 in the morning bangladesh time. joining me is foreign policy analyst. nice to see you again. let's talk a little bit about the context here. there has been a claim through an isis affiliated news agency

claiming that isis was responsible for this. we have very scant details right now. but we know there are multiple people involved, multiple gunmen holding hostages. our last guest told us police have surrounded the pleas and there are dozens of hostages inside. what does this say about the strength of isis in this moment? >> you know, when the attacks in istanbul took place, isis didn't take responsibility. even though it was very clear from the evidence and from also the immediate investigation that they were involved. isis central for that matter was involved. these were central asian or c chechyan. they carried out and planned out and carried out this attack. but it took isis a while.

this is different. bangladesh is not in the middle east. it is in asia. it borders pakistan and india. it is nowhere near isis central in iraq and syria. so to them in a way having been able to take credit and lay claim to an attack a couple miles away or 3,000 miles away from their capital is almost as significant as carrying out attacks in europe. it is saying that we have this operational reach even somewhere in bangladesh, which is nowhere near syria or iraq. that's one thing. secondly, it's -- these attacks, especially an attack we think nine people have been involved in, these are complex attacks and well coordinated plans. so it does take some time and some planning and especially funding to be able to put such an attack in motion. but there are three big elements. one is ideology. the second is the issue of

funding. the third is the issue of planning. we know for years and years of funding a radical ideology by some of our allies has a hot-button issue. we put a lot of pressure on the saudis or the government of qatar to put more pressure on their own citizens to stop the spread of cash, money, and also the spread of ideological legitimization of this spreading around the muslim world and elsewhere. second is the issue of planning and opportunity. this is the last week of the month of ramadan. the month of ramadan is 30 days of fasting and 30 days of purity for the muslim world. people get-together with their families. they break their fast every night after sunset. and they get-together to participate in festivities and to drink tea or smoke hookah and to chat about their daily lives. to be able to target a cafe,

even though it is mostly frequented by ex pats, hitting places where there's ex-pats, it fits definitely within that sort of -- the target -- the ideal target of an isis attack, large crowds, a lot of ex-pats, a place of gathering. and also indiscriminate killing of muslims and nonmuslims to show anyone who is not with them, anyone not with isis and does not pledge allegiance to the islamic state or the caliphate or the islamic state is an in fadel and his or her blood is worth being shed. that is the issue here. in the broader scheme of things, as i said, and i don't want to be an alarmist, but this is not going to go anywhere. these attacks have been on the rise whether it's isis central, isis regional. my biggest fear, lone wolves and

isis-inspired attacks. these attacks will continue. we need better intelligence gathering, better cooperation with allies and do a lot better. bangladesh is a densely populated country. a lot of highly educated folks but extremely poor. so when you have this sort of relative deprivation, you have grounds for isis recruitment. you have fertile groups for ideological radicalization. and if you look at the past couple years, i'm not talking about post independence 1971 war, i'm just talking about the past couple of years. you see that the violence in bangladesh has been on the rise dramatically against seculars, against dissidents, against the lgbt community, against other muslim minorities and against hindus and christians and so on and so forth. so there is a problem. bangladesh is just one example of this bigger pool this this poverty and intolerance joining hands together to create these

sorts of disaster. but let's not add all factors of ideology, funneleding and also planning here. they go hand in hand to create such tragedies. >> thanks so much for being with us. again, appreciate it. let me just take a moment to bring you up to date on something -- news and information we have gotten in from the state department spokesman. we have been reporting there are claims being made on the news agency affiliated with isis, claims being made that isis was involved in this attack that we are seeing played out in bangladesh. the state department spokesman saying we have seen those but cannot yet confirm. they are assessing the information. also importantly, if you've been watching for a while, you know the u.s. embassy is just about a 15-minute walk from the area that we're looking at on your screen. and importantly they say at no time was the u.s. embassy compound under immediate threat from this attack. no threat in dhaka, bangladesh.

the state department spokesman also saying at this point they have accounted for all official american personnel. everyone who works for the u.s. embassy has been accounted for. no injuries reported. earlier they just said they knew where they were. we didn't know if any were injured. now they are saying no injuries reported. they say we are working with local authorities to determine if any u.s. citizens or locally employed staff may have been affected. that would be a separate category of people separate and apart from the official embassy staff. so they are trying to locate u.s. citizens and local employees. also the embassy, for the record, is sheltering in place at the moment. 2:40 in the morning. most people are in bed who weren't involved in this attack. we will continue to keep an eye on all of this. we will continue our breaking news coverage after a quick break. okay... what if a million people download the new app? we're good. five million? good. we scale on demand. hybrid infrastructure, boom.

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joining us again now for breaking news coverage, on the phone with us clint watts, a former fbi special agent. now senior fellow at the foreign policy research institute's program on national security. thanks for being with us. we're talking for those -- >> thank you. >> we're talking about an incident yon going in bangladesh in the capital city. if you've been watching, you know this has been going on six plus hours now. it's the middle of the night. they have hostaging holed up in a restaurant with some number, potentially nine militants armed who have been engages in

gunfire. and there were explosions heard earlier. the question to you, clint, as a former fbi special agent, you know this region. this is not the first time. in fact, we have seen an escalation of violent attacks in bangladesh. >> absolutely. it's been an escalation that's been going on for months. it started off with assassinations, targeted killings on seculars in bangladesh. knife attacks, machete attacks on key figures. it escalated into what is a typical isis-type attack, an attack on a soft target with a hostage situation that can sighing el for hours. so not surprising at all. it's one of the few areas around the world that has really shown more affinity towards isis and a connection with it as well. >> you might think they wouldn't want to attack where it is a muslim majority. >> right. it's curious as well because they have very few foreign

fighters from bangladesh that actually showed up in syria and iraq. when you look at the numbers, the physical connections that we typical see like we saw in istanbul, lebanon and yemen, are there with bangladesh. it has become an emerging hot spot. saw that the past three to four months. their main group there in bangladesh is an isis-inspired group. and they seem to really be drawn to that propaganda. when you're a small extremist group in a country like this, when you want to up your game, you attach yourself to a group that is well-known. isis is perfect for that. in syria and iraq, they get a lot of notoriety and popularity and show success for that in bangladesh you say this could be the work of a smaller group attaching itself to the brand of

isis? >> absolutely. i talked on "morning joe" earlier this week about cascading terrorism. like the sue bombings in istanbul. it cascades down. the directed aing tas lead to morin expired attacks, which is definitely the case it seems here in bangladesh. >> clint watts, thank you. we appreciate it. over to law enforcement analyst, special agent in charge, jim cavanaugh who remains with us as well. jim, we just heard from a couple of guests maybe 15 minutes ago. a couple of people on the ground in bangladesh. one on the ground and one in nearby pack telling us that police have surrounded the place but they don't appear, at least to our knowledge, to have engaged with the hostage takers. they put a ring around it,

cordon around it, but they are not engaging. is that smart at this hour, six hours in, to wait them out? >> well, engaging you mean not assaulting. >> not militarily. >> so they may be engaged verbally, kate, with them, or attempting to verbally engage with them. and also the actors may even be calling the local media and talking to the local media or talk to go someone on the outside. remember, the mumbai attacks where there was 10 actors over four days. they were being directed from pakistan by taibi over the cell phone. we don't know quite what's happening here. they may be communicating with the police on the perimeter. they could be calling the media. they could be having somebody direct them on the outside. of course they could be talk to go nobody.

in terrorists world, this is a success already. stop right now. if they stopped right now, this is a success for isis. they have grabbed the world media. they are holding a situation static. lives are in the balance. and so this is a success already. it's going to be a success for them because it's already a success for them. now the challenge for the police commanders what you're getting to, kate, the crux of the matter, what's going to happen next? is there going to be a move? it's not likely they will want to surrender and walk out. they will make a bunch of demands. the demands will not probably be anything achievable. there may be some smaller agreements. maybe some people can be released. and you made the point this was in bangladesh, a muslim country, but it is an international section of bangladesh. that means so much in the targeting. >> if they have explosives, we heard reports that they have

used grenades and explosions have been heard by numerous eyewitnesses. if they have explosives, why would they not follow i guess the typical pattern of isis and potentially blow themselves up? why would they be waiting with hostages? why would they be holding hostages? >> well, because you hold the attention, you hold the theater, you can hold the time. you can always kill yourself if you have a bomb strapped on. what's the hurry? it's like the bataclan theater. remember in that case they waited for the french police to come in. they wanted to negotiate with the french police while they had the suicide vests strapld on them f. you're going to die anyway, why not make demands, get your message out, claim you're isis, put a flag out the window, put out deadlines, kill one hostage. all of these things are possible as the hours ensue because they're already in their mind, you know, at the top of their game. they're holding the fort, if you will, keeping the police at bay.

as you pointed out earlier with water on their back. so they feel secure. of course well trained special operators and police can close that ring and can get in there. but it can still be a bloodbath with the top teams of the world just because you have seven to nine actors. and that gives them a lot of places to put people with guns and bombs. and of course the improvised grenades to keep the police perimeter back to keep that point of contact back. and that's probably why they shot the police on the perimeter, kate. the assistant commissioner and some other officers when they moved off the barricade. terrorists trying to keep their perimeter and they shot and killed them. he is in the city. he heard gunshots when this all first started. nasif, if you can hear me, you were on your cousin's balcony when this happened.

can you describe for us what you heard? >> hello. i'm sorry. >> can you describe what you heard when this all happened. >> so we were out on the balc y balcony. we heard three back-to-back shots. initially my cousin, he suggested it was gunshots. but i thought it was construction. we're not in an area where you would hear any kind of gunfire. my aunt ran into the room and asked us to watch the news five minutes after that. that's when we were first aware of what was going on here. >> how close are you to the scene? >> i'm right around the corner from where this restaurant is. it is literally a walk from where i am right now. >> can you see -- i don't know if it's safe to look outside the window. can you tell us what you can

see? >> from where we were standing at the time, you could see the end of the road but not the actual restaurant. we saw a lot of police cars pull up. and there are still a lot of people standing and crowding around the area. but that's pretty much all we can see. i have no idea what's going on. >> yeah. i know it's almost 3:00 in the morning. has the electricity been cut off at all? do you still have lights? >> no. but our wi-fi is down. i'm not sure if that's related. but it's been down. >> when is the last time you heard anything? when was the last explosive sound? >> there was an explosion a couple of hours after the initial gunshots. and we heard this outside as well as on the news. we watched it live on the news.

and i believe a police officer in charge was killed because of the explosion. >> yes. we've been reporting on that. >> just outside the gate. that was the last actual thing we heard from outside the place. since then we have just been watching the news. they have actually cut off the live feed of the local news here. we are just waiting to hear anything at this point. >> nazif, do you know anyone who is inside? >> yes. i actually know the owner of the restaurant quite well. >> is he safe, do you know? >> another one was able to get out. and i believe he contacted somebody to let them know he was safe. other than that, my cousins that are here, the younger ones

friend from school is inside and nobody has heard from him. >> i'm so sorry. >> he's not answering his phone at the moment. >> nazif, we wish you all the best and thank you for taking time to talk to us. d dentalife. it's really different. see? it's flexible... ...and it has a chewy, porous texture, full of little tiny air pockets that gives dogs' teeth a clean scrub all the way down to the gum line. (vo) introducing purina dentalife. for life. i drive to the hoop. i drive a racecar. i have a driver. his name is carl. but that's not what we all have in common. we talked to our doctors about treatment with xarelto®. xarelto® is proven to treat and help reduce the risk of dvt and pe blood clots. xarelto® is also proven to reduce the risk of stroke in people with afib, not caused by a heart valve problem. for people with afib currently well managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto® and warfarin compare in reducing the risk of stroke. you know, taking warfarin, i had to deal with that

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this new dog treat called max and dentalife.covered it's really different. see? it's flexible... ...and it has a chewy, porous texture, full of little tiny air pockets that gives dogs' teeth a clean scrub all the way down to the gum line. (vo) introducing purina dentalife. for life. let's check in with the white house now. ron allen is covering that. ron. >> reporter: kate, i think one of the biggest things of course is whether this is an incident that is domestic in nature to bangladesh, or whether there are international links to some other group. that of course would be a completely different category than what has gone on the past few months and longer. in the united states and other western governments, there's been a lot of concern about the growing violence in bangladesh over the recent months. the white house has been in

consultations seeing how they can help, lend expertise, capacity to the police, intelligence to help them. that is what the main concern is here. that's what the president is most mindful of. we wrap up this hour of coverage. my colleague chuck todd picks up right now. i'm kate snow. good evening. and i'm chuck todd here in washington. of course it's been a busy friday before fourth of july in politics. big changes in our nbc news. major changes and updates. we get our "first look" at the democratic platform. sanders versus clinton, who won out there. we'll get to the politics in a minute. first, the very is latest on the breaking news we have been following all day here that's been going on in bangladesh. police say as many as 40 hostages are still being held in