The General Directorate of the Internal Security Forces announced on Thursday that the person arrested in the shooting incident at the US Embassy near Beirut was a delivery service worker, and he wanted “revenge” after being subjected to an “insult” by one of the embassy’s security personnel about two months ago.

On the night of September 20, the detainee (26 years old) fired several bullets at the wall of the embassy building in Awkar, north of Beirut, without causing any injuries. He then managed to escape, before being arrested five days later in the southern suburb of Beirut.

The Internal Security Forces said in their statement that he confessed during his interrogation to firing shots at the embassy. He justified this by his desire for “revenge” after he was “insulted” by a security officer at the embassy, while delivering a food order about two months ago.

According to the statement, the detainee took an internal road that enabled him to reach the main entrance of the embassy, without passing through a nearby Lebanese army checkpoint. He fired several shots at the embassy wall from a Kalashnikov rifle that he had brought from his home and hidden inside a food delivery bag.

The military judiciary is investigating the incident. Preliminary investigations showed, according to what a security source reported to Agence France-Presse last week, that the shooter fired 15 bullets towards the embassy, a number of which hit its iron gate.

The area surrounding the US Embassy complex is witnessing strict security measures, mainly undertaken by the Lebanese Army. Washington is currently building a huge complex in the same area to move the embassy there.

The shooting coincided with the thirty-ninth anniversary of a car bombing that targeted an embassy building in Awkar in 1984, killing 11 people and wounding dozens. Washington held the Lebanese Hezbollah, supported by Tehran, responsible for it.

The embassy moved to this town in 1984 after its previous building in the Ain al-Marisseh area in western Beirut was exposed to a massive suicide truck bombing on April 18, 1983, which killed 63 people. The attack was claimed by an organization calling itself "Islamic Jihad", which Washington confirmed was linked to Hezbollah.