Lebanese security forces have arrested nine people, most of them Syrian nationals, over last week's twin bombings in Beirut that killed 44 people, the interior minister said Sunday. 

"Until now the detained include seven Syrians and two Lebanese, one of them a (would-be) suicide bomber and the other a trafficker who smuggled them across the border from Syria," Interior Minister Nuhad Mashnuq said in a televised press conference. 

The attack on Thursday was claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.