GUNMEN have stormed a crowded restaurant popular with foreigners in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, taking diners hostage and triggering a deadly firefight with police, witnesses and officials said.

Nine armed attackers have taken about 20 people hostage — including some foreigners — in an up-market restaurant in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka after exchanging fire with police in which at least 40 people were injured and at least two police officers were killed.

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the hostage situation, which has been going for more than eight hours.

A statement on the group’s self-styled news agency Amaq said militants had attacked a restaurant “frequented by foreigners”, and that more than 20 people “of different nationalities” had been killed. Those numbers could not be confirmed.