[8][9] The group, which began operating in 2009, was founded by Saudi Saleh Al-Qaraawi and has networks in various countries,[10] mainly in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

It is named after the late Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, a Palestinian from Jordan and a well-known preacher and organizer who was among the first Arabs to volunteer to join the Afghan jihad against the forces of the then-Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Al-Majid was declared the leader and emir of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades in June 2012, until his capture by Lebanese authorities on December 27, 2013, and eventual death from kidney failure on January 4, 2014.

The Abdallah Azzam Brigades was formed by the Saudi national Saleh Al-Qaraawi in 2009[3] as an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and was tasked with hitting targets in the Levant and throughout the Middle East.

The group formally announced its establishment in a July 2009 video statement claiming responsibility for a February 2009 rocket attack against Israel.

[31] On 8 December, the head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Zarteef Khan Afridi (had been working with tribal leaders to trying to pacify the region) was shot dead by armed militants in Jamrud, Khyber.

[32][33] On 24 February 2012, this alleged group equipped with suicide bombers blew themselves up in an attack on a police station "C Division" in the heart of Peshawar.

Spokesman Abu Zarar Said, speaking from an unknown location, said that the attack was a reaction to the killing of a top militant leader, Badar Mansoor, in a drone strike in Waziristan.

[46][47][48] On 19 November 2013, the Brigade claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut, which killed at least 23 people and wounded over 140.

[54][55][56] On 19 February 2014, the brigade carried out an attack on the Iranian Cultural Center in Beirut's southern suburb of Bir-Hasan, killing 11 and wounding 130, their motive was the support of Iran in the Syrian war.

[57][58] Three days later, a car bomb blasts at a Lebanese Army checkpoint on Al-Assi Bridge at the entrance to Hermel city, Beqaa Governorate.

[66] On 3 January 2014, DNA tests confirmed that the man detained by Lebanese army intelligence is Majid al-Majid, the chief of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades.

The DNA samples belonging to relatives of Majid in Saudi Arabia matched those of the suspect who remained in custody of the Lebanese Armed Forces, Lebanon's state National News Agency reported.