Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq ordered on Saturday the closure of the gas distribution stations in the Bir Hassan area in Beirut after investigations with detained extremists revealed that the spot could be a target of a terrorist attack, the state-run National News Agency said.

The ministry issued a statement saying that investigations with some extremist detainees revealed that two gas stations in the area could be targeted by suicide-bombers.

President Michel Suleiman condemned on Saturday the latest shelling of Lebanese towns bordering Syria in the Bekaa region.

He said: “The shelling is an attempt to drag Lebanon towards the Syrian crisis.”

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed the formation of a new Lebanese government, hoping that it will pave the way for Lebanon to meet its constitutional deadlines.

He hoped that Lebanon will hold the presidential and parliamentary elections on time, as well as respect the Baabda Declaration.

The Lebanese army and the Internal Security Forces are on a mission to hunt down a group of four veiled women wearing explosives belts and who are tasked by Lebanese Sheikh Sirajeddine Zouraykat of the Abdulllah Azzam Brigades to carry out suicide terrorist attacks, the As Safir daily reported on Saturday.

The women who were able to leave the Syrian area of Yabrud and head to the northern Bekaa, are said to be of Iraqi and Lebanese nationalities. They are tasked to execute suicide attacks in religious places of a specific sectarian orientation, sources told the daily.

Efforts to come up with a policy statement have so far failed as various proposals by the ministers at the panel tasked with the mission have been met with rejection by the rival March 8 and 14 camps, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday.

It said that Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil and Labor Minister Sejaan Qazzi came up with two different proposals that do not include points of contention, but they were rejected.

European Union Ambassador to Lebanon Angelina Eichhorst hoped that all sides in Lebanon would avoid any escalation in retaliation to Israel's strike against a Hizbullah position earlier this week, reported As Safir newspaper on Saturday.

She told the daily that diplomatic channels urged Hizbullah to exercise restraint.

The committee drafting the ministerial policy statement on Friday failed again to reach an agreement on the clause related to resisting Israel as the March 14 forces insisted on “the state's authority over everything.”

“We still have disagreements over some points, including the resistance topic and some other points related to sovereignty,” Labor Minister Sejaan Qazzi, the Phalange Party's representative in the panel, announced after the meeting at the Grand Serail.

Syrian warplanes on Friday carried out several raids on several areas in the outskirts of the eastern border town of Arsal in the Bekaa, the state-run National News Agency reported, as al-Nusra Front executed two men who support the regime.

"Syrian fighter jets launched strikes on the al-Zamarani valley in the Arsal region," NNA said in the afternoon.

First Military Investigation Judge Riyad Abu Ghida demanded on Friday the death penalty for Salafist cleric Ahmed al-Asir and several of his supporters over the Abra clashes with the army near the southern city of Sidon.

Media reports said that Abu Ghida requested the death penalty to al-Asir and 56 others.

Inmates at Roumieh prison held a strike at the facility on Friday, two days after dozens stitched their lips together as part of a hunger strike to demand better living conditions.

The prisoners, however, ended their sit-in in the afternoon after Judge Dany al-Zhenni listened to their “legitimate demands and needs,” Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi announced.