Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea left Sunday for Saudi Arabia for talks with top Saudi officials.

Head of the Loyalty to Resistance bloc, MP Mohammed Raad, stressed Sunday that Hizbullah is willing to engage in dialogue with the al-Mustaqbal movement while underlining that the party will not give up its principles in any talks.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday urged the state to fulfill justice in the murder of Sobhi and Nadimeh Fakhri, as he called on the Jaafar family to hand over the killers of the couple and rejected any “political cover.”

“We express our full solidarity with you and with all the residents of Btedei, Deir al-Ahmar and the entire region,” al-Rahi said in the northern Bekaa town of Btedei, after offering condolences to the Fakhri family.

The army arrested Muslim Scholars Committee member Sheikh Hossam al-Ghali on Sunday as he was heading to the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal along with four Syrian gunmen of whom one was carrying an explosive belt.

Ghali was reportedly seeking to hold talks with the kidnappers of the Lebanese troops and servicemen when he was arrested.

A sit-in was held outside the Grand Serail at the Riad al-Solh Square in downtown Beirut in solidarity with the families of the captive servicemen as the al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front reportedly appointed a new negotiator.

The relatives of abducted soldiers and police expressed hope in the endeavors carried out by Health Minister Wael Abou Faour to end the abduction ordeal.

An army unit detained on Sunday two suspects over links with terrorist organizations in dawn raids at the town of Bhannine in the Akkar district.

According to a communique issued by the army command, an army unit raided several areas in the village of Bhannine and detained two suspects identified as Hussein and Shawqi Ali Breis over links with terrorist organizations.

An army patrol opened fire on Sunday at a thief while he was trying to break into a shop in the village of Faitroun in the Mount Lebanon area of Keserwan.

The robber was injured after exchanging fire with the army and was admitted to the Saint George hospital.

Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement expressed reservations on tasking the Muslim Scholars Committee with negotiating the release of Lebanese soldiers and policemen taken hostage by Islamist gunmen.

According to the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, Hizbullah rejects tasking the committee with negotiations over its ongoing campaign against the party and its intervention in the war raging in the neighboring country Syria.

Syrian armed gunmen are planning to open a front in Lebanon by invading the northeastern border town of Arsal and advancing into al-Qaa, Ras Baalbek and other nearby villages.

According to the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Siyassah, the al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the Free Syrian Army have been entrenched for the past two months and a half on the mountains overseeing the Lebanese Bekaa on the porous Syrian-Lebanese border.

The controversial and outspoken Druze leader Walid Jumblat called in a "joint statement" on Twitter Saturday for the cultivation of marijuana to be legalized.

"It's time to allow hash to be grown and to overturn arrest warrants against people sought for doing so," the veteran politician wrote in Arabic on his Twitter account.