Senior Al-Qaeda suspect dies in Lebanese custody

The senior commander of an Al-Qaeda-linked group believed to be behind a Beirut bomb blast that killed 23 people in November has died just days after he was arrested by the Lebanese army.

Lebanese army and judicial sources said Majid al-Majid, a Saudi citizen who was the senior leader of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, died on Saturday after suffering kidney failure.

Majid, suspected over a series for attacks across the Middle East before focusing on Syria, was held at an undisclosed place in Lebanon. He was one of the 85 most-wanted individuals in his native Saudi Arabia.

The Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed it carried out the November 19 twin suicide bombings that targeted the Iranian embassy in Beirut. In tweets at the time of the bombing, the group threatened more attacks in Lebanon unless Iran pulled its forces out of Syria.

Last year Abdullah Azzam Brigades, named after an associate of the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, were formally designated by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.

Nearly three years of violence in neighboring Syria has exacerbated sectarian strife in multi-confessional Lebanon, as politicians sided with rival groups in Syria. Sunni radicals and the Shia group Hezbollah have engaged for months in a tit-for-tat killings, leading to a spate of attacks. The latest was on Thursday, when four people were killed in a suicide bomb attack.

The Lebanese army revealed on Saturday the identity of Thursday's suicide bomber who blew himself up in south Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold.  

"The DNA test results on the remains of a suicide attacker found in the car used in the bomb attack... confirm they belong to the youth Qutaiba al-Satem," an army statement said.

"Investigations are ongoing by the relevant judicial authorities to uncover the full details of the event," the military said.

An official from Satem's native Sunni-majority area of Wadi Khaled told AFP on Friday suspicions over the 20-year-old's role were based on a family document found at the scene of the blast.

Satem's father was then called in for DNA tests.

Al Jazeera and wires