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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - By The cleric, Omar Bakri Muhammad, was arrested in the town of Aley, according to the National News Agency. He had been on the run since April, when security forces raided his house in Tripoli.

Mr. Bakri, who was born in Syria, preached for years in London, where he helped found Al Muhajiroun, a radical Islamist group that was banned and reconstituted itself as Hizb-ut-Tahrir. He moved toLebanon in 2005 and has been barred from returning to Britain.

Lebanese authorities viewed him with increasing concern after he expressed support for an extremist group that has taken over parts of northern Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and called for it to activate cells in Lebanon. He has denied ties to Al Qaeda, but has called for the group’s flag to be flown over Lebanon’s presidential palace.

The arrest came a day after President Michel Suleiman’s term expiredwithout Lebanese factions being able to agree on his replacement. The country is sharply divided between supporters and opponents of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, a split with sectarian overtones reflecting those in Syria, where the government is fighting a mostly Sunni insurgency.

The crisis has deepened perennial fighting in Tripoli between Sunnis and Alawites, who belong to the same sect as Mr. Assad.

Also on Sunday, the 14th anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from areas it has occupied in southern Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Shiite militant group and political party Hezbollah, reaffirmed his organization’s commitment to the government of Syria.

“Syria will triumph, and the resistance axis will triumph,” Mr. Nasrallah said in an address delivered on video, referring to the coalition between Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Palestinian factions united against Israel.

Hezbollah has played a pivotal role in the Syrian war, sending fighters to aid the government in crucial battles, a move that has divided Lebanon. Mr. Nasrallah said on Sunday that Hezbollah is defending a government that “nourished and protected” the organization. Syria is a major conduit for weapons flowing from Hezbollah to Iran.

Mr. Nasrallah called Western aid to Syrian insurgents a “historic sin” and said that the West would face problems from extremist fighters who have traveled to Syria to join the battle. (The United States says it is not backing extremists, and opponents of the Syrian government say that what aid the West has offered has been too little, too late.)

Mr. Nasrallah said that “no amount of foreign intimidation or mockery” could derail Syrian elections, scheduled for June 4, that are expected to give Mr. Assad a new term. The government’s international opponents have called the elections a farce.