A heroic US student killed in the Dhaka terror attack refused his ISIS hostage takers' offer to walk free - deciding instead to stay and die with his two female friends, the Daily Mail has reported.
Faraaz Hossain, a student at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, was one of the many people inside the Holey Artisan Bakery when it was invaded by seven ISIS extremists armed with guns and other weapons.
He and Abinta Kabir, 18, who was also enrolled at Emory, and Berkeley student Tarishi Jain, 19, were among the 20 people hacked to death inside the cafe in Bangladeshi's capital city between Friday night and Saturday morning.
Twenty hostages, most of them foreign, were killed in the attack. Two police officers also died and 30 were injured, the BBC has reported.
Bangladeshi commandos rescued 13 people on Saturday morning after a 12-hour siege, killing six gunmen and arresting another.
Nine Italians, seven Japanese, one US citizen and an Indian were among the dead. One Italian is still unaccounted for.
Tributes are being paid to victims of the attack (Credit: PA Images)
But near the end of the standoff, the gunmen released a group of women dressed in traditional Islamic hijabs and Faraaz was given the chance to leave because of his Bengali ancestry, his nephew told the New York Times.
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Faraaz refused the offer because the terrorists denied his female friends, who said they were from India and the United States, the same opportunity.
"We will not kill Bengalis. We will only kill foreigners," one of the terrorists is said to have shouted during the attack.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, releasing photos of the grinning killers, but Bangladeshi authorities have denied the despotic terror group was responsible for the attack.
Authorities today released the first names of the five attackers - Akash, Badhon, Bikash, Don and Ripon - who are all said to come from 'rich' Bangladeshi families.
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Bangladesh's home minister said on Sunday that the attackers belonged to a local militant group which has been banned for more than a decade.
"They are members of the Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangladesh," Asaduzzaman Khan said. "They have no connections with the Islamic State."
Describing the attack, Argentine chef Diego Rossini told how the gunmen burst into the Holey Artisan Bakery on Friday evening with bombs and machine guns.
"I can't still believe this happened," he said. "It was like a movie, they pointed their guns at me and I could hear shots passing by. I was very, very afraid."
He said he had escaped by running to the cafe terrace and jumping on to another building.
Bangladesh has declared two days of national mourning for those killed.
RIP to all killed.
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Words by James Dawson
Featured Image Credit: Twitter
Featured Image Credit:Topics: ISIS