DHAKA Gunmen attacked a restaurant popular with foreigners in the diplomatic quarter of the Bangladeshi capital on Friday, police and a witness said.

The witness said from his house in the upscale Gulshan area of Dhaka he could hear gunfire and it “looked quite bad”. The U.S. Embassy in Dhaka said on its Twitter feed there were “reports of shooting and hostage situation”.

Bangladesh has seen a series of attacks, mostly using machetes, targeting bloggers, atheists and religious minorities.

(Reporting by Serajul Quadir; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Catherine Evans)