Dhaka (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Bangladesh police say they have arrested the fugitive leader of an Islamic militant group wanted over a series of deadly bomb attacks.

Shaikh Abdur Rahman is the supreme leader of the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JMB) group.

On Wednesday, police surrounded a house, reportedly full of explosives, in Sylhet, north-eastern Bangladesh. Rahman gave himself up with two others early on Thursday, and was taken away for questioning, police said.

Security forces stormed the house on Wednesday and arrested nine people, including Rahman's wife and daughter. The operation, involving more than 500 members of the elite Rapid Action Battalion, police and the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles began late on Tuesday night.

The alleged militant is accused of organising a wave of blasts and suicide bombings in Bangladesh, which have killed at least 28 people since last August. The judiciary has been a prime target, with four lawyers and two judges among the dead.

Earlier this month, Rahman and another top JMB leader, Siddiqul Islam, alias Bangla Bhai, were sentenced in absentia to 40 years in prison for a bomb attack which killed two judges last November.

Last August, some 500 bombs were set off in all but one of Bangladesh's 64 districts in the space of an hour. Three people were killed and about 100 injured. More than 100 cases have been filed against members of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, which the authorities blame for the bombing campaign.

The militant group has been demanding the introduction of Islamic Sharia law in the country.