Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati condemned on Thursday the renewal of clashes between the rival Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen neighborhoods in the northern city of Tripoli, saying that its residents feel like pawns in regional schemes.

He said after holding a security meeting with President Michel Suleiman on the latest developments in the city: “There is no other option for Tripoli but resorting to the state.”

Two people were killed on Thursday and 21 others were injured, including a soldier, in renewed fighting and sniper activity in the northern city of Tripoli, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The fighting had reportedly escalated following the death of Arab Democratic Party top military official Bassam Abdullah in Jabal Mohsen.

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun has advocated the election of a president away from foreign intervention and advised Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam to launch a new round of consultations with parliamentary blocs.

“There should always be a first time. Currently there are a lot of crises and no one's thinking about us. So we should elect the president internally,” Aoun told al-Akhbar daily in an interview published on Thursday.

Lebanese officials are mulling the country's participation in a peace conference over Syria in accordance with the dissociation policy that the country has adopted since the conflict in the neighboring country erupted in March 2011.

Diplomatic sources told An Nahar newspaper published on Thursday that Lebanese officials will inform U.N.-Arab League special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, who is expected to arrive in Beirut on Saturday, that it will not join Geneva ll conference.

Syria expressed resentment over Lebanon's exploitation of the case of the two kidnapped bishops, who are Syrians, An Nahar newspaper reported on Thursday.

According to the newspaper, Syria stressed that the case of the Bishops Youhanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazigi, who were kidnapped by armed men in Syria in April, is “a national Syrian matter,” which Lebanon is interfering in.

Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal has warned that “Lebanon is on the brink of civil war as Hizbullah continues to implement its own agenda without giving any consideration to law and order.”

The party “is willing to risk the foundations on which the entire Lebanese political system was built in order to prevent the collapse of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime and impede the work of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon that is probing the assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri,” al-Faisal said in a lecture he delivered at the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations in Washington.

Hammana residents on Wednesday staged a sit-in and blocked the Dahr al-Baidar international highway at the Falougha intersection, state-run National News Agency reported.

The move comes in protest at the inauguration of the al-Qaisamani dam project in the Falougha area, “which might in the future affect the drinking water supply in Hammana,” NNA said.

The Lebanese army said troops seized Wednesday in the Wadi Hmayyed area an arms-laden car coming from Syria and arrested its four Syrian passengers.

“As part of the mission of controlling the Lebanese-Syrian border, army forces intercepted this morning in the Wadi Hmayyed-Arsal area a dark blue Geely car that entered from Syria illegally,” an army statement said.

Israel reiterated Wednesday it would act to prevent any transfer of advanced arms to "militants" during the conflict in Syria, as a newspaper reported an Israeli airstrike along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, speaking at the parliamentary foreign and defense committee, said Israel was closely monitoring the situation in Syria and the regime's moves to dismantle its chemical arms.

The March 14 General Secretariat hailed on Wednesday the release of the nine Lebanese pilgrims who were held in Syria's Aazaz region, but questioned how negotiations were carried out with Syrian security chief Ali Mamlouk in the case.

It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: “A state that meets and negotiates with Mamlouk, who is wanted by Lebanon's judiciary, is not a state that respects itself or its people.”