Bangladeshi police at the site where Cesare Tavella was shot dead on Monday night in an upmarket area of Dhaka. Photograph: Suvra Kanti Das/Demotix/Corbis
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the fatal shooting of an Italian citizen on a street in the diplomatic quarter of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, according to an intelligence group monitoring jihadi threats.
The claim by the extremist group, which controls swaths of Iraq and Syria and is intent on expanding its influence across the Muslim world, could not immediately be verified independently. If it was confirmed, it would mark the group’s first attack in the secular south Asian nation.
Bangladesh has been struggling in recent months with the rapid rise of hardline Islamist groups, banning several blamed in the killing of four bloggers this year.
The British and US governments have
warned their nationals to be aware of the security threat in Bangladesh following the most recent shooting.
Police in Dhaka said they had no leads in tracing the three unidentified assailants, who, riding on a single motorcycle, drove up alongside Italian citizen Cesare Tavella and shot him on Monday night.
“We have no idea, we can’t say anything definitively for now,” police official Mukhlesur Rahman said, declining to comment on Isis’s claim of responsibility.
There have been worrying signs in recent weeks that extremist groups based in Bangladesh are developing a more international perspective. This month,
a hit list of international bloggers believed to have been compiled by the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a local group of militants that has claimed responsibility for several murders of secular campaigners and writers in Bangladesh, was circulated on the internet.
The ABT has been linked to an affiliate of al-Qaida, the veteran militant organisation, which has been trying to build up its south Asian presence for several years.
The formation of a new affiliate, al-Qaida in South Asia, was announced by
the group’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, a year ago.
The surge in Islamic militant violence in Bangladesh may in part be driven by bitter competition between al-Qaida and Isis. Both aspire to lead Islamic extremism worldwide, but differ widely over strategy, although both seek maximum publicity for their actions.
Witnesses of Monday’s attack said they heard at least three gunshots and saw the attackers flee after the victim fell to the ground, police said.
Tavella, an aid worker and veterinary surgeon in his 50s, had been living alone in Dhaka after arriving in May to work on food security issues for a Netherlands-based church cooperative, according to his colleague Alo Rani Dhali.
On a profile on the Couchsurfing website that bears his name, photograph, and location in Dhaka, Tavella said he was “curious to discover this great world we have and its people”. In a section on his personal philosophy, he had written: “My time here is too short not to try and enjoy it as much as possible in a healthy and positive way.”
Isis reportedly said in a statement dated on Monday that a “security detachment” had tracked and killed Tavella with “silenced weapons” in Dhaka, according to the SITE intelligence group’s website
It was not immediately clear how close the witnesses were to the attack, and how the gunshots could have been heard if a silencer was used.
Isis warned that “citizens of the crusader coalition” would not be safe in Muslim nations. Almost 90% of Bangladesh’s 160 million inhabitants are Muslim.
The Gulshan district where Tavella was shot is a quiet, upmarket area favoured by western expatriates, visiting businessmen, diplomats and wealthy locals.
There are growing concerns in western capitals and among security services at the deteriorating security environment in Bangladesh. Australian officials are considering whether
a tour by the country’s cricket team should go ahead.
Authorities in Bangladesh have been
criticised for failing to protect bloggers, and for not taking the problem of rising extremism sufficiently seriously.
The country’s vast garment industry, a key foreign exchange earner and employer, depends to a large extent on western clients who travel to Bangladesh to arrange deals and inspect factories.
Al-Qaida and Isis are competing across much of south Asia to attract recruits and donors. The rivalry is especially fierce in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan, India and the Maldives.
Bangladesh, where there is a decades-old history of hardline Islamic extremist activism, is fertile ground for both groups.
Dhaka police were questioning witnesses to the attack, including street beggars who reportedly heard the gunshots and saw the attackers flee, local broadcaster Somoy Television said on Tuesday.
One witness, Sitara Begum, said she was terrified upon hearing the shots while she was sitting on the road near the scene of the attack. “I was looking at the east side of the road, but hearing the gunshots I looked at the west side and saw two men run and get on to a waiting bike. They fled quickly,” Begum said.
