DHAKA • Bangladesh police said yesterday that they had arrested the spiritual leader of a banned extremist outfit alleged to have carried out a series of deadly attacks in the country.

Police detained Maolana Abul Kashem, 60, at a hideout in the capital on Thursday night, after an investigation linked him to the Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) group.

Mr Mohibul Islam Khan, deputy commissioner of the Dhaka police counter-terrorism unit, said Kashem had inspired the attack on a Dhaka cafe last July in which 22 people, including 18 foreign hostages, were killed.

"He was the spiritual leader of the JMB," Mr Khan said. "In our primary investigation, we found that all (the extremists) were inspired by him."

He added that Kashem had met the alleged mastermind of the cafe attack, Tamim Chowdhury, several times.

Bangladesh has suffered a spate of attacks on secular activists, foreigners and religious minorities in recent years.

Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have claimed responsibility for several of the attacks, but Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's secular government has pinned the blame on local Islamist extremists.

Bangladeshi security forces have launched a nationwide crackdown on extremist groups since the cafe attack, arresting scores of suspects.

Several top leaders of the JMB have also been killed, most in what police said were shoot-outs.

But rights groups have voiced suspicions that these may have been staged.

Another counter-terrorism police officer, Mr Sanwar Hossain, said Kashem had headed an Islamic seminary before joining the JMB in 1998.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE