A man who was killed while trying to hijack a commercial flight in Bangladesh was a 24-year-old passenger from a village near the capital who had been previously arrested in a kidnapping case, officials said.

A court in Bangladesh has sentenced 26 people, including a politician and three officials from an elite security unit, to death over the politically motivated killings of seven people in 2014.

Bangladeshi schools and stores have closed and most traffic has halted in protest at a bomb attack on the country's main opposition leader.

Authorities have ordered an investigation into the weekend bombing at a ruling party political rally in which at least 22 people were killed.

A bomb has exploded at a political rally of the governing party in Bangladesh, killing at least 13 people.