An Islamic extremist cleric who fled Britain at the weekend has been arrested by security forces in Beirut.
Lebanese security officials said Omar Bakri Mohammed was detained after he left the news studios of Future Television in Beirut.
An Interior Ministry source said there had been no arrest warrant issued for Bakri but that according to the law he could be held for up to 48 hours for questioning.
Prosecutors and police in Britain are considering whether to bring terror-related charges against the cleric.
It was unclear whether the arrest was linked with his activities in the United Kingdom. Bakri provoked outrage last week when he said he would not inform police if he knew Muslims were planning a bomb attack.
He left Britain, where he has lived for 20 years, on Saturday and travelled to the Lebanon to see his mother, his spokesman has said.
The preacher - spiritual leader of the soon-to-be-banned al-Muhajiroun group - said he planned to return to London in about four weeks.
But on Tuesday it emerged that immigration rules could be tightened within weeks to bar him from setting foot in the country again.
Bakri is Syrian, but his wife's family is Lebanese and he has citizenship in both Syria and Lebanon.
In London, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said there was no British connection to the detention as there was no warrant for Bakri's arrest.
Agencies