President Michel Suleiman and al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri held talks in Paris on Wednesday night, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported.

The newspaper said Thursday that the meeting was held on the sidelines of a dinner banquet thrown by deputy Speaker Farid Makari in honor of Suleiman and the delegation that accompanied him to the International Support Group for Lebanon meet.

Senior officials discussed a controversial decision enforced by Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq to shut down two centers of filling gas canisters in Beirut's southern suburbs.

According to al-Liwaa newspaper published on Thursday, ex-Prime Minister Saad Hariri contacted high-ranking officials to address the matter and resolve the repercussions caused by the shutting down of the two companies.

U.S. Ambassador David Hale is expected to visit Riyadh this weekend in an attempt to salvage the new government from the deadlock of the policy statement, al-Mustaqbal newspaper reported on Thursday.

The daily said Hale's expected talks with top Saudi officials are aimed at finding a solution to the impasse of the policy statement of Prime Minister Tammam Salam's government on the eve of the presidential elections.

The Qaida-inspired al-Nusra Front in Lebanon on Wednesday claimed responsibility for firing three rockets on the Bekaa town of al-Nabi Sheet, in the latest such attack this week.

“The heroes of al-Nusra Front in Lebanon shelled the lairs of the party of Iran (Hizbullah) with three Grad rockets in retaliation to its massacres in Syria,” the group said on its Twitter page.

President Michel Suleiman hoped on Wednesday that the international community will commit to pledges it had made towards Lebanon concerning tackling the Syrian refugees and assisting the Lebanese army.

He said: “We hope the international community will support the army to help it implement a defense strategy that I had proposed at the national dialogue.”

Maronite bishops regretted on Wednesday Hizbullah's campaign against President Michel Suleiman and condemned the "assault on his dignity" as the symbol of the nation's unity.

Following its monthly meeting under Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in Bkirki, the council of Maronite bishops “urged all parties to stop the campaign against the president … out of respect for the nation.”

Arab Democratic Party Secretary-General Rifaat Eid denied on Wednesday that his father and the party's leader and ex-MP, Ali Eid, had fled to the neighboring country Syria.

“My father is practicing his normal life in Hikr al-Dahri town in (the northern district of) Akkar,” Eid said in comments to LBCI.

Conflicting reports emerged on Wednesday on whether the Lebanese army opened anti-aircraft fire at Syrian warplanes that intensively hovered over regions the Lebanese border town of Arsal, in the eastern Bekaa.

MTV said that a Syrian airstrike targeted an area near a post for the Lebanese army in village of Aqba al-Mabeeda, prompting the army to open anti-aircraft fire.

Israel said Wednesday it fired at and hit two members of Hizbullah as they tried to plant a bomb near the Israeli-Syrian border, but Syrian state media accused the Jewish state of targeting its forces.

"Earlier today, two Hizbullah-affiliated terrorists were identified attempting to plant an explosive device near the Israel-Syria border in the northern Golan Heights,” the army said in a statement.

The al-Qaida-affiliated Al-Nusra Front in Syria and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant haven't taken a decision to “officially enter Lebanon,” as the two groups are still dealing with agents for them to “send messages to Hizbullah.”

“Both groups have the necessary logistic capabilities to carry out attack in Lebanon similar to those in Iraq but there's no decision yet to move the conflict to Lebanon,” a leader in al-Nusra Front said in comments published in al-Akhbar newspaper.