FM: Iran To Send Team To Lebanon To Probe Nov. Attack On Embassy

Tehran, Jan 4, IRNA – Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced that Iran will send a team to cooperate with the Lebanese government in the interrogation process of the arrested Saudi terrorist who carried out terrorist attacks on Iran’s embassy in Beirut in late October. Zarif made the announcement in a telephone conversation with his Lebanese counterpart Adnan Mansour on Friday. Zarif also conveyed President Hassan Rouhani’s gratitude for the Lebanese government’s effective measures in arresting the main perpetrators behind the terrorist attack against Iranian embassy in Beirut. The Iranian foreign minister pointed to the arrest of Saudi national, Majed Al-Majed, who carried out terrorist attack on Tehran’s embassy, and said, “Given the role of this man in creation of insecurities in the region and also assassination of Iranian embassy staff and a number of Lebanese nationals, the Islamic Republic of Iran plans to send a team to Lebanon to help with the interrogation process.” The Lebanese foreign minister, for his part, thanked Iran for declaring its preparedness to help with the investigation process of the Saudi national. On Tuesday, the Lebanese security forces said they have arrested Majed al-Majed, the Saudi ringleader of Abdullah Izzam Brigade which has claimed responsibility for the November 19 bombings in front of Tehran’s embassy in Beirut, which left 23 dead, including cultural attaché Ebrahim Ansari. Abdullah Brigade claimed the responsibility for the two bomb blasts which killed 23 people and injured 146 others near the Iranian embassy compound in the Lebanese capital in mid November. The attack targeted just 10 meters away from the embassy in Beirut’s Southern neighborhood of Jinah, inflicting much damage to the compound. A few days later, the Lebanese police announced that they had identified the two suicide bombers who attacked the Iranian embassy. The police said Moin Abu Zahr, a 20-year-old Lebanese national and a follower of Sunni Salafi Sheikh Ahmed Al-Assir, was responsible for carrying out the first attack, and Omar Sobheh was announced to have carried out the second terrorist operation. In relevant remarks in December, Iranian lawmakers took Takfiri groups affiliated to Riyadh responsible for the bombings, saying that the terrorists have had the backup of Riyadh. “Such terrorist events are created by those who are the hirelings of the al-Saud,” member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Avaz Heidarpour said in a press conference in Tehran. Naming the terrorist group which carried out the bombings against the Iranian embassy as ‘Abdullah Brigade’, he said the two main culprits behind the attack were Arab nationals. Also, Vice-Chairman of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mansour Haqiqatpour said that such terrorist attacks are carried out by Takfiri groups affiliated to the reactionary countries. “Similar events which have happened in Iraq and Syria were led by Saudi Arabia as well,” he underlined./end