The Lebanese authorities are reported to have arrested the head of a jihadist group that claimed the suicide bomb attack on Iran's embassy in November.
Defence Minister Fayez Ghosn told the AFP news agency that Majid al-Majid, the Saudi "emir" of the al-Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades, was being held by army intelligence in Beirut. He later denied making any statement, but other sources confirmed the arrest.
The embassy attack killed 23 people, including the Iranian cultural attache.
A Salafist cleric close to the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, Sheikh Siraj al-Din Zureiqat, had issued a claim of responsibility in its name.
He warned attacks would continue in Lebanon until Iranian and Hezbollah forces stopped fighting alongside government forces in Syria, and the Sunni group's prisoners were released in Lebanon.
Investigators later identified the two suicide bombers as a Lebanese man with ties to hardline Sunni groups and a Palestinian man with ties to the fugitive Sunni Islamist cleric, Sheikh Ahmed al-Assir.
Abdullah Azzam Brigades names leader, advises against attacks in Syria's cities (The Long War Journal)
- Based in Lebanon and the Arabian Peninsula
- Formed in 2009, according to US, but name used to claim attacks in Egypt in 2004 and 2005
- Saudi wing claimed 2010 attack on Japanese oil tanker off the coast of Oman
- Lebanese wing behind occasional rocket fire against Israel since 2009, but not believed to have carried out a major attack until embassy bombing
- Led since 2012 by Majid al-Majid, a Saudi citizen named on the kingdom's most-wanted list
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário