Lebanon Arrests Leader of Qaeda-Linked Group, Reports Say

Lebanon Arrests Leader of Qaeda-Linked Group, Reports Say
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/world/middleeast/lebanon.html
By ANNE BARNARD JAN. 1, 2014

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Lebanese military authorities have detained the Saudi leader of a Sunni militant group linked to Al Qaeda that claimed responsibility for a double suicide bomb attack on the Iranian Embassy in Beirut in November, according to Lebanese news media.

The militant, Majid bin Muhammad al-Majid, is the head of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an offshoot of Al Qaeda. He was taken into custody just three days after Saudi Arabia pledged a $3 billion aid package to the Lebanese Army. The gift was widely seen as a Saudi attempt to counter the influence of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia and political party that is allied with the Shiite government of Iran and with Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.

The detention, which American national security officials confirmed to news agencies, provoked an array of political responses in the region — the latest sign that the power struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which is helping to drive the bloody war in Syria, is intensifying in neighboring Lebanon.

An Iranian national security official, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, on Wednesday praised the Lebanese security forces for apprehending Mr. Majid, and blamed him for the embassy bombing. He also urged the Lebanese government to consider the fact that “the main element in the operation is of Saudi nationality,” Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency reported.

While there was no immediate response from Saudi Arabia, there is little sympathy in its government for Mr. Majid, who is on its list of people most wanted for links with Al Qaeda. A Lebanese newspaper, Al Safir, wrote that he was “wanted by Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and several other Western countries, mainly the United States.”

The Abdullah Azzam Brigades, which has also claimed responsibility for attacks in Egypt and Jordan, was formed in the crucible of the Iraqi insurgency in cooperation with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Qaeda franchise there. That was done on orders from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Sunni militant who was subsequently killed by American troops, according to the Long War Journal, a website that follows counterterrorism efforts.

While founded well before the conflict in Syria, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades has allied itself with extremists among the rebels fighting Mr. Assad there and has threatened more attacks if Hezbollah does not stop sending its fighters to support him. Recently, Mr. Majid was reported to have pledged allegiance to the Nusra Front, another Qaeda-linked group fighting in Syria.

Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanese ally and Lebanon’s most powerful political party, have backed Mr. Assad, while their Sunni Lebanese political rivals have supported the insurgency. Hezbollah has sent fighters to aid the government, and Lebanese Sunni militants have joined the rebels.

The Iranian official, Mr. Boroujerdi, said that Lebanese security forces had arrested two people, including someone involved in “the assassination of the Hezbollah leader in Lebanon,” an apparent reference to the shooting death in December of Hassane Laqees, a senior Hezbollah militant. It was unclear whether he was blaming the Abdullah Azzam Brigades or Saudi Arabia for killing Mr. Laqees. Citing the killers’ professionalism, Hezbollah had blamed the hit on Israel rather than Sunni jihadist groups.

Mr. Majid’s detention was potentially sensitive in a divided Lebanon, especially under a caretaker government that has been in place for months because of political stalemate. The army has tried to maintain its reputation as the only largely neutral security agency, even as it remains too weak to challenge Hezbollah’s independent militia, and Lebanese Sunnis increasingly see it as leaning toward the Shiite party.

The war in Syria has been a fruitful recruiting tool and training ground for extremist Sunni militants in Lebanon, who have a longstanding presence but had been seen as fairly marginal before the Syrian conflict. Until recently, they had been mainly confined to pockets in Palestinian refugee camps outside the control of Lebanese authorities.

Now, with the Syrian war radicalizing some groups and Lebanese militants crossing the porous border to fight on both sides of the conflict, extremist fighters and clerics have increased their presence and influence in border areas, camps and cities.

Mr. Majid lived in one of the camps, Ein al-Hilwe, near the southern city of Sidon until recently, according to Munir al-Maqdah, a commander in the Palestinian Fatah movement in the camp. Mr. Maqdah said that security officials had informed Fatah that Mr. Majid had entered the camp and later left for Syria.

While it is not known when Mr. Majid was detained, Hezbollah’s television channel Al Manar quoted Lebanese security officials as saying that an attack on a security checkpoint on Dec. 15 near Sidon and the Ein al-Hilwe camp was an attempt by militants to free him.

The Iranian Embassy bombing was one of several attacks in recent months to heighten fears that the increasingly sectarian conflict in Syria is bringing violence to neighboring Lebanon, radicalizing the population and deepening Lebanon’s own political and sectarian divisions.

In what have been seen as tit-for-tat attacks, car bombs have targeted Hezbollah-dominated neighborhoods in the southern suburbs of Beirut and Sunni mosques in the northern city of Tripoli.

On Friday, a powerful car bomb killed Mohamad B. Chatah, a former Lebanese finance minister who was a major figure in the Future bloc, a political group that is Hezbollah’s main Sunni rival.

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on January 2, 2014, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Lebanon Arrests Leader of Qaeda-Linked Group, Reports Say.