BEIRUT: Lebanese troops have arrested the leader of the Al Qaeda-linked group that claimed a double suicide bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut in November, the defence minister said on Wednesday.

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.

“He was wanted by the Lebanese authorities and is currently being interrogated in secret,” he added.

Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry also confirmed that Majid Mohammed Abdullah al 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 the Arabian Peninsula and Lebanon, with the latter named after Ziad al Jarrah, a Lebanese citizen who participated in the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.

The Lebanon branch has sporadically fired rockets into northern Israel since 2009 and the Brigades also claimed responsibility for the 2010 bombing of a Japanese oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.

It is named after the Palestinian mentor of the late Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. He was killed in a 1989 bomb blast.

According to Islamist websites, Majid was declared as the leader of the Brigades in 2012.

On Wednesday, a Twitter account belonging to Sirajeddin Zreikat, a member of the Sunni extremist group, appeared to have been suspended. Zreikat had claimed responsibility in the group’s name for the Nov 19 double bombing at the Iranian embassy in Beirut that killed 25 people.—AFP