Unknown assailants on Monday assaulted a Syrian man who is a resident of the Tripoli neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen.

“Syrian national Ahmed Ibrahim Ali was assaulted in the al-Qobbeh neighborhood” in Tripoli, state-run National News Agency reported, noting that the man was born in 1989 in the northern city.

The Lebanese army has arrested a Syrian young woman who was videotaping a number of sites in the vicinity of the defense ministry building in Yarze, including the house of Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji, An Nahar newspaper reported Monday.

“The young woman lives in a building near the ministry and she used to practice jogging on daily basis and under the eyes of soldiers,” An Nahar said.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon resumed on Monday its hearing sessions in The Hague, as Khaled Toubaili, a firefighter that was involved in the rescuing operations on February 14, 2005, gave his testimony.

Toubaili, a firefighter at the Bashura sector in the Beirut Fire Department, recounted the events he experienced on the day of former premier Rafik Hariri's assassination.

Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblat hailed on Monday former Prime Minister Saad Hariri's recent stands on local and regional developments.

He lauded to the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa website the former premier's “refusal to drag the Sunni sect towards the conflict between Hizbullah and al-Qaida.”

President Michel Suleiman defended on Monday the army against critics who accuse it of making illegal arrests of suspects, saying the investigation with them was being carried out in a high level of transparency.

Suleiman was briefed by Army chief Gen. Jean Qahwaji on the situation in Lebanon in general and mainly the northern city of Tripoli, a Baabda Palace statement said.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani said Monday that extremism rose in Lebanon over the failure to resolve the file of Islamists held in Roumieh prison and attempts to topple Dar al-Fatwa's “moderate role.”

“The file of Islamists has been one of the reasons for the rise of extremism,” he said in reference to suspects, who were arrested during Fatah al-Islam’s battles with the Lebanese army in the northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in 2007.

An Israeli soldier was injured on Monday when a bomb went off near the barbed wire in the southern border town of Adaisseh, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The NNA said that the soldiers was digging a hole near the barbed wire when the bomb exploded.

Security forces were on Monday investigating the death of a toddler in the northern city of Tripoli after a private hospital allegedly refused to treat him for a severe respiratory illness, the state-run National News Agency reported.

NNA and Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) said Mustafa Farouq Dawwash, 18 months, died at dawn Monday after his parents failed to find a room for him at a Tripoli hospital.

Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam and the Free Patriotic Movement have exchanged accusations of responsibility for the delay in the formation of the new government.

FPM officials told As Safir daily published on Monday that “the obstacle in the cabinet formation is Msaitbeh because Salam created the crisis when he came up with the idea of rotation (of portfolios) and held onto it when (al-Mustaqbal bloc leader) ex-PM Fouad Saniora made it as a condition.”

Hizbullah is exerting efforts to convince its ally the Free Patriotic Movement to lower its rhetoric concerning the cabinet formation process and end obstacles hindering the government formation.

According to al-Liwaa newspaper published on Monday, a meeting was held on Sunday evening between FPM's caretaker Energy Minister Jebran Bassil and a delegation from Hizbullah.