Syrian troops backed by Hizbullah fighters have killed at least 50 jihadists from the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front groups near the border with Lebanon, a monitor said Saturday.

The clashes raged through the night and into the morning on Saturday in the border region of Qalamun, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat called on Saturday on the Arab countries to kick off a dialogue with foreign states to confront terrorism.

“Saudi Arabia should lead a dialogue with Iran and Turkey in order to fight terrorism that is committing crimes in the name of Islam, displacing Christians from the Iraqi state of Mosul and destroying the Arab and Islam diversity,” Jumblat told al-Mustaqbal newspaper.

The political arch-foes remained at loggerheads on Saturday over the new pay hike for public employees despite the intensive efforts to end the impasse with the Syndicate Coordination Committee that insists on boycotting the correction of official exams.

Education Minister Elias Bou Saab reiterated in comments published in al-Joumhouria newspaper that he rejects attempts by the SCC to control the future of students.

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said on Saturday that the Lebanese state didn't take any “extraordinary measures” regarding the influx of Christians from the Iraqi city of Mosul as a the Patriarchs of the Orient are set to hold a conference in Lebanon on August 7.

“The state didn't take any extraordinary measures regarding the flow of Iraqi Christians to Lebanon as it considers that their conditions are not similar to the Syrian refugees,” Derbas said in comments published in the the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat.

The Lebanese Army Intelligence apprehended seven Syrian nationals while trying to infiltrate illegally into Lebanese territories by evading checkpoints.

According to the Central News Agency, the seven Syrians were trying to enter the southern border town of Shebaa illegally by dodging army checkpoints that are distributed in nearby areas.

The Syrian refugee woman huddled in the latest room she calls home, a peeling, run-down place outside a north Lebanese village. The mother of six doesn't know how she'll pay the rent. She's gotten by over the past year by taking a series of lovers who would pay for her housing.

But then a few months ago she was arrested for prostitution. That put a scare in her — that and threatening mobile messages from a former lover — so she's trying to go it alone.

Lebanon has handed over DNA samples from relatives of 20 citizens killed in a July 24 Air Algerie plane crash in Mali, a foreign ministry source told Agence France-Presse on Friday.

Mali is leading the investigation into the crash in which 118 people were killed when their plane went down in a remote area on the southern edge of the Sahara.

Lebanese security forces have arrested a woman in the northern city of Tripoli after discovering an explosive belt and drugs in her home, a security source told Agence France-Presse on Friday.

The Lebanese woman, who was not named, is in her thirties and married to a Syrian who is currently in prison in Lebanon for firing at soldiers, the source said.

Al-Mustaqbal movement leader MP Saad Hariri on Friday lauded a speech by Saudi King Abdullah, saying it “raised the alarm” over the threats of terrorism in the region and the continued Israeli aggression against the Palestinians.

In a statement issued only two hours after the monarch delivered his address, Hariri described the king's remarks as “historic and highly important,” saying they “accurately reflect the painful situation that the Arab region is going through due to the proliferation of terrorism.”

Military Examining Magistrate Fadi Sawan interrogated on Friday six suspects charged with belonging to the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant and al-Nusra Front.

According to the state-run National News Agency, the six men carry Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian nationalities.