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Bangladeshi fugitive leader wanted for 400-bomb attack surrenders after siege

The fugitive leader of a Islamic militant group in Bangladesh wanted for a deadly wave of bombings surrendered to police yesterday after a 33-hour siege, police said.

Television pictures showed Sheikh Abdur Rahman, with his trademark red henna dyed beard and red-checked headscarf, being escorted out of the house where he had been holed up surrounded by scores of heavily-armed elite security forces.

Rahman, the leader of the banned Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh, had been cornered in the one-story building in the northeastern city of Sylhet since early on Wednesday.

"We have arrested Sheikh Abdur Rahman along with his two accomplices," Sylhet police chief Ansaruddin Khan Pathan said.

Taken alive

"Our main success is that we have arrested him alive," added Director General of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) security force General Abdul Aziz Sarker, speaking to the private NTV television station.

"He took his time but finally had no choice but to surrender. He realized that surrender was his only option," he said.

Footage from inside the one-story building showed swords, books urging holy war and a crude bomb containing around 3kg of gunpowder with a detonator.

RAB officers earlier smashed open windows of the house to allow firefighters using hosepipes to douse the explosives, which were known to be inside, with water.

Engineers had spend part of the night drilling through the roof of the building in an attempt to force Rahman out.

On Wednesday, RAB personnel stormed part of the house and arrested nine people at gunpoint, including the militant's wife and two daughters.

Rahman's wife was later brought back to the scene to urge her husband to give himself up.

Rahman is accused of masterminding a wave of blasts and suicide bombings which have rocked the country since Aug. 17 when over 400 explosive devices were detonated almost simultaneously in towns and cities across the country.

At least 28 people, including four suicide bombers, have died in the attacks.

Security forces, backed up by hundreds of police and paramilitary soldiers, swooped on the house early on Wednesday after a tipoff. Marksmen were posted on the roofs of surrounding buildings and an area of 8km2 was cordoned off.

Police said earlier they were determined to arrest Rahman alive and put him on trial for his alleged involvement in the bombings.

Leaflets

Leaflets left at blast sites bearing the name of his group called for the imposition of strict Islamic law in the Muslim nation. The judiciary has been a prime target with four lawyers and two judges among the dead.

Officers using megaphones urged Rahman to surrender peacefully but instead Rahman shouted back at officers, urging them to to join him in his battle to establish Islamic law in the country.

Rahman was taken to the RAB's regional headquarters in Sylhet and was due to be flown to the capital, Dhaka, later yesterday.

Rahman, who fought in the Afghan war after graduating from Medina University in Saudi Arabia, formed the Jamayetul Mujahideen in the late 1990s.
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