Prime Minister Tammam Salam urged the Army Command on Monday to take measures to control the situation in border regions in the eastern Bekaa Valley after gunmen fled into Lebanon following the fall of the Syrian town of Yabrud.

A statement issued by his office after a meeting between Salam and Army chief Gen. Jean Qahwaji at the Grand Serail, said the PM instructed the military commander “to take all the necessary measures to control the situation in Bekaa's border areas and do what it takes to protect civilians, and consolidate stability in Arsal, al-Labweh and nearby towns.”

The criminal court in northern Bekaa led by Judge Jean Bseibes, sentenced Maher Tleis and three other Syrians for life for their involvement in different kidnappings in the area, the State-run National News Agency said on Monday.

Tleis and the three Syrians, al-Jasem, Ali al-Ali and Radwan al-Tayeh, were sentenced for life hard labor.

The Lebanese army blew up on Monday a booby-trapped vehicle found on the Fakha-Ras Baalbek road in eastern Lebanon, after firing an RPG-7 rocket on it, the military and the state-run National News Agency reported.

The army said in a communique that it blew up the car, which contained 170 kilograms of explosives, after the military expert inspected it and found difficulty in defusing it.

Fears rose in Lebanon on Monday that gunmen, who have fled into Lebanon after Syrian government troops and Hizbullah fighters captured Yabrud, a strategic town near the frontier, would increase retaliatory attacks against the supporters of the Shiite party.

The first alleged retaliation came on Sunday when a suicide bomber driving a Grand Cherokee left several casualties in the town of Nabi Othman, about 30 kilometers north of Baalbek.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has expressed readiness to engage in a “serious dialogue” with its arch foe Hizbullah and described the upcoming presidential elections as the “mother of all battles.”

“There is no tension with Hizbullah. Our differences with it are not personal or sectarian,” Geagea told al-Akhbar newspaper in an interview published on Monday.

A suicide car bomb attack killed four people and wounded several others late Sunday in the Bekaa town of al-Nabi Othman, state-run National News Agency reported.

“Hizbullah members knew he was about to carry out the attack, and tried to stop the vehicle. That was when the attacker detonated the vehicle," a Lebanese security source told Agence France Presse.

Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi on Sunday announced that his priority in the new cabinet will be seeking the withdrawal of Hizbullah from Syria, describing the fall of the Syrian rebel bastion of Yabrud as an “illusionary” victory and slamming the celebrations of Hizbullah's supporters in several Lebanese areas.

“In the wake of the successive events in Syria, the last of which was what happened in the town of Yabrud and the cross-border exodus into Arsal, we reiterate our warning against this rejected involvement in Syrian affairs, which exposes Lebanon to a definite danger,” Rifi said in a communique.

Head of Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance bloc MP Mohammed Raad on Sunday called on the new cabinet to “exert efforts to achieve what it has considered as priorities: fighting terrorism and holding the presidential vote within its constitutional timeframe.”

He also urged the cabinet, which adopted a consensus policy statement Friday after a month of political wrangling, to “shoulder the responsibility of alleviating the dire living conditions of the Lebanese.”

The army opened fire on Sunday at a vehicle in the outskirts of Arsal after it refused to comply with the orders of the checkpoint, the state-run National News Agency reported.

According to NNA, an army checkpoint in al-Reyan valley on the outskirts of the eastern border town opened fire at the pick-up truck after people in it refused to follow their requests.

Arsal residents condemned Sunday the firing of rockets from the Eastern Mountain Range, urging the army to deploy in the area, as the only road linking the town to al-Labweh and Lebanese regions was reopened.

“We denounce all kinds of terrorism and the firing of rockets from the eastern mountain range,” a statement issued by the prominent figures of the Bekaa town of Arsal's following a meeting at the municipality of the town.