LOOKEAST

A new video has surfaced on the Internet of three Bangla-speaking men praising the gunmen who carried out the deadly attack on a Gulshan cafe.

The video released in a SITE Intelligence site is said to have been shot in Raqqah, the so-called capital of the Islamic State in Syria.

The message containing threats has gone viral on social media among Bangladeshis still recovering from the shock from the slaughter of 20 hostages at Holey Artisan Bakery and O’ Kitchen during the night-long siege on last Friday.

“It was a glimpse…will repeat,” tweeted Rita Katz, director of SITE intelligence, quoting the men from the video. Two had their faces covered, while another was bearded.

Among the 20 killed, nine were Italian – the most by a single nation. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina consoles Ambassador Mario Palma after paying homage to the victims in a state ceremony at Dhaka’s Army Stadium. Photo: PMO

The video begins with Islamic State propaganda messages, with captions in Bangla, and boasts of death tolls from numerous terror attacks claimed by IS.

“The jihad in Bangladesh, the one you are witnessing now, is nothing like anything you have seen before,” said one of them, in his ‘message’ for the Bangladesh government.

Many on Facebook have identified the speaker based on facial resemblance, but the claims could not be verified.

He then speaks in English for the ‘Christian and Jewish crusaders and their allies’ to say their leader Sheikh Adnani was not joking when he asked them to wage war.

“What you witnessed in Bangladesh yesterday was just a glimpse, this will repeat, repeat and repeat until you lose and we win …”

The five gunmen of the Gulshan attack were shot dead by commandos who took control of the case almost 12 hours after the youths launched the attack on the upscale eatery.

The morning raid led to freeing of 13 hostages, but 17 foreigners and three Bangladeshis had already been slaughtered.

SITE had reported that IS claimed responsibility for the attack and said 20 were killed within few hours after Bangladesh’s first-ever hostage crisis emerged.

Al Tamkin has been successfully blocked by Bangladesh cyber-intelligence, but the militants have also come up with a Bangla version of the ISIS-backed news agency Amaq. Both Al Tamkin and Amaq in Bangla can be accessed in India

But Bangladesh police have maintained that the militants were members of the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh.

Three of the attackers are from well-off families and studied in Dhaka’s top schools while two others came from poor families in Bogra.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the wake of the deadly attack said the sovereignty of Bangladesh was won with the blood of million martyrs and will never be compromised.

Tahmid Rahman Shafi, former Grameenphone official and son of former election commissioner Shafiur Rahman can seen in latest IS video with subtitles in Bangla and Arabic

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh militants have launched a ISIS-style news agency in Bangla, to back up their violent campaign with ‘information warfare’.

The news agency Al Tamkin has been successfully blocked by Bangladesh cyber-intelligence, but the militants have also come up with a Bangla version of the ISIS-backed news agency Amaq. Both Al Tamkin and Amaq in Bangla can be accessed in India.

The militants are releasing propaganda material aimed at radicalisation of young Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh and neighbouring Indian states through these two sites,

Indian external intelligence agency R&AW and West Bengal police intelligence have both alerted Delhi to the dangers posed by these news agencies.

They are releasing texts, audio material and video clips and have also released a mobile app to get tuned to the ISIS radio station Al Bayan for its English bulletin.

An ISIS supporter Zakil Ummah posted on social networking platforms that these domains have been deleted. “We are waiting for their reinstallation,” Zakil said.

The speed with which the Dhaka attack pictures were released on ISIS-run media leads Indian intelligence to believe that Bangladeshi home-grown militants have managed to develop direct links with Al Hayat media, the ISIS’ foreign language publication wing.

Al Tamkin carried a long interview of the IS Bangladesh chief Abu Hanif and systematically uploaded translated material from Dabiq, ISIS journal, into Bangla. This Hanif is said to be a Bangladesh expat Tanim Choudhury who reportedly lives in Canada.

Al Tamkin’s mission statement says it wants to ‘ carry the voice of the Khilafah to those who speak Bangla’.

Credit: bdnews24.com