REPORT: Iran asks Lebanon to partake in investigations with chief of Abdallah Azzam Brigades

Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs Adnan Mansour said on Thursday that Iran submitted a memorandum to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking to take part in the investigation with a Saudi man suspected of being the chief of the Abdallah Azzam Brigades that claimed responsibility for the Iranian Embassy blasts.

The suspect was identified as Majed al-Majed and is believed to have lived in the Palestinian Refugee Camp of Ain el-Hilweh. He reportedly left the camp a month ago heading to Syria where he joined the ranks of Jabhat al-Nusra.

Mansour told LBCI that the memorandum will be referred to the concerned judicial authorities, stressing that Iran "has the right to partake in the investigations since the blasts targeted an Iranian territory and claimed the life of an Iranian national."

Wanted by the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, al-Majed is the head of Abdallah Azzam Brigades, an offshoot of al-Qaeda, which claimed a twin blasts attack on the Iranian embassy in Beirut last November.

This comes as Iranian ambassador to Lebanon Ghadanfar Rokenabadi told LBCI that a specialized Iranian Intelligence delegation partook in the inspection operations at the location of the Iranian embassy twin blasts.

Rokenabadi also noted that the Iranian and Lebanese authorities agreed to allow the Iranian delegation to partake in the investigations.

A double suicide attack targeted on Tuesday, November 19 the Iranian embassy in south Beirut’s Bir Hassan region, killing 30 people, wounding 150 and damaging buildings in the embassy compound.

Live footage from local news channels showed charred bodies on the ground as flames rose from the remains of several vehicles. Aid workers and residents carried away some of the victims on blankets.

Caretaker Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil stated that the Cultural Attache of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sheikh Ibrahim Ansari was killed in the blasts. Ansari took his post in Lebanon just one month prior to the explosion and was overseeing all regional cultural activities.

The Abdullah Azzam brigades, a Lebanon-based al-Qaeda affiliate, said it was behind a double suicide attack on the Iranian embassy.


To watch the full report, please click on the video above.