Bangladesh police try to confirm names of attackers from Facebook posts

Dhaka: Bangladeshi police are trying to confirm the names of Islamist militants who attacked a Dhaka restaurant, killing 20 people, checking whether the identification of some by friends on social media is correct, officials said on Monday.

Islamic State posted pictures of five fighters it said were involved in Friday's killings in Dhaka's diplomatic zone, most of the victims from Italy, Japan, India and the United States.

"Let the people of the crusader countries know that there is no safety for them as long as their aircraft are killing Muslims," it said in a statement.

Read: Dhaka attack: Gunmen kill US boy after he refuses to leave female friends

Posts on Facebook identified three of the five, whose grinning images appeared in front of a black flag, as Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz and Meer Saameh Mubasheer.

Police have said all six gunmen killed were locals and five were on a government militant watchlist. But they also said they were holding off before confirming their identities.

Whoever was responsible, Friday's attack marked a major escalation in scale and brutality by militants demanding Islamic rule in Bangladesh, whose 160 million people are mostly Muslim.

Read: Bangladesh's ruling Awami League leader's son among Dhaka attackers

Some of the men went to an elite public school in Dhaka, Scholastic, and then college at North South University in the capital and Monash University in Malaysia, according to the posts. Masudur Rahman, deputy police commissioner of Dhaka police, said officers were probing those links.

"A majority of the boys who attacked the restaurant came from very good educational institutions. Some went to sophisticated schools. Their families are relatively well-to-do people," Bangladeshi Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu told NDTV.

Police arrested a seventh man at the restaurant who they suspect played a role in the attack. He is currently in hospital.