Summary Most of the victims had been brutally hacked to death with sharp weapons.
DHAKA (AFP) - Armed militants killed 20 civilians after taking them hostage in a Bangladesh cafe overnight and many of the victims were hacked to death, an army spokesman said on Saturday.
"We’ve recovered 20 bodies. Most them had been brutally hacked to death with sharp weapons," Brigadier General Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury told reporters in Dhaka, without giving the nationality of the victims.
Thirteen survivors were also rescued at the end of the siege in an upmarket neighbourhood of the capital Dhaka, including three foreigners.
"Three of those who were rescued were foreigners, including one Japanese and two Sri Lankans," said the spokesman.
Bangladesh commandos ended the hostage siege by storming a cafe where dozens of diners had been held captive by extremists and shot dead six of the heavily armed gunmen.
Elite force took control of the cafe in the capital Dhaka’s upmarket Gulshan quarter.
Two police officers were killed at the start of the siege, which began on Friday night as they battled the hostage-takers who were heavily armed with automatic weapons and explosives.
As the Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the attack at the start of the Eid holiday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said she was determined to eradicate militancy in the mainly Muslim nation.
Hasina’s government has previously blamed a string of deadly attacks on religious minorities and foreigners on her domestic opponents but the attack will heighten fears that IS’s reach is spreading.
"I thank Allah that we’re able to kill the terrorists," she said in a televised address. "It was an extremely heinous act. What kind of Muslims are these people?"
Tuhin Mohammad Masud, a commander of the elite Rapid Action Battalion which led the storming operation, said that six gunmen had been killed and the situation was now under control.
"It was a horrendous night," said Diego Rossini, an Argentine chef who managed to escape through a terrace during the siege.
"They (the hostage-takers) had automatic weapons and bombs," he said on Argentinian TV as he described how he eventually managed to escape into the next-door building despite coming under fire.
"I felt bullets pass so close to me, I felt fear like I’ve never felt in my life."
Bangladesh has been reeling from a wave of murders of religious minorities and secular activists by suspected Islamist militants.
But those murders generally only involved a handful of assailants while the latest attack appears to have been on a much bigger scale and the first time that people were held hostage.
The IS-linked Amaq news agency said the group was behind the attack and later issued a number of photographs of what it said were scenes from inside the cafe.
WATCH VIDEO:
