Lebanon arrests head of al-Qaeda-linked group that claimed attack on Iran embassy

BEIRUT - Agence France-Presse

Lebanese troops have arrested the leader of the Al-Qaeda linked group that claimed a double suicide bombing at the Iranian embassy in November, the defence minister told AFP Jan. 1.

Majid al-Majid, the "emir" of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, "was arrested by the intelligence services of the Lebanese army in Beirut," Defence Minister Fayez Ghosn said, without specifying when the arrest took place.

"He was wanted by the Lebanese authorities and is currently being interrogated in secret," the minister added. Saudi Arabia's interior ministry also confirmed that Majid, a Saudi citizen, was on a list of 85 suspects wanted by the kingdom.

The Azzam Brigades was designated in the United States as a "terrorist organisation" in 2012, and has in the past claimed responsibility for firing rockets into Israel from Lebanon.

The group was formed in 2009 and is believed to have branches in both Lebanon and the Arabian Peninsula. According to Islamist sites, Majid was revealed to be the leader of the Brigades in 2012.

Sentenced to life imprisonment

On Jan. 1, a Twitter account belonging to Sirajeddin Zreikat, a member of the Sunni Muslim extremist group, appeared to have been suspended. Zreikat had claimed responsibility in the group's name for the double bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut that killed 25 people. He had warned of more attacks in Lebanon if the Iran-allied Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah kept sending troops to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime in its war on Sunni-led rebels.

In 2009, Lebanese authorities sentenced Majid in absentia to life in prison for belonging to a different extremist group, the Al-Qaeda-inspired Fatah al-Islam.

That group was involved in heavy fighting with the Lebanese army in 2007 in the Palestinian Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon, in which more than 400 people were killed, including 168 soldiers.

After the fighting, many members of the group took refuge in the Ain al-Helweh Palestinian camp, which is believed to house numerous Islamist extremists.

A Palestinian official in the camp told AFP on Jan. 1 that Majid had left Ain al-Helweh in mid-2012 for Syria.