Army chief Gen. Jean Qahwaji’s visit to Washington did not result in any change in the United States decision to halt military assistance to the Lebanese army, As Safir newspaper reported on Friday.

The relations between the U.S. and Lebanese army “are strong and we support the funding of the aid program to the Lebanese army,” a source in at the State Department told the daily.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat held talks on Thursday night in what sources said was a coordinated meeting ahead of the Druze leader’s expected interview with al-Manar.

Hizbullah’s TV station said the two officials discussed the latest developments but a source close to the two parties told al-Liwaa newspaper that the meeting and Jumblat’s TV appearance on Friday night are part of coordinated joint stances.

The March 14-led opposition is preparing for a “general national conference” next month in the light of the results achieved by the “Lady of the Mountain” gathering scheduled for Oct. 23, An Nahar newspaper reported on Friday.

The conference will determine a broad vision on the upcoming stage in Lebanon and the region.

The United States said Thursday the most senior leader of the extremist Haqqani group yet "taken off the battlefield" had been killed in a lawless tribal area of Pakistan.

"It's been confirmed that Janbaz Zadran, aka Jamil, was killed earlier today in North Waziristan, Pakistan," said a senior US official, revealing the death of the latest target of the secret U.S. anti-terror war.

The West is trying but failing to instill "Iranophobia," Iran's supreme leader said Thursday in remarks that appeared to be prompted by, but did not directly address, U.S. allegations of a thwarted Tehran-sponsored assassination plot.

"The repeat of ineffective and stupid methods by hapless and distracted policymakers in the West (to spread) Iranophobia will again bear no result," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an army base in the western city of Kermanshah, the official IRNA news agency reported.

U.S. President Barack Obama Thursday demanded answers from the pinnacle of Iran's government over an alleged plot to kill the Saudi envoy to Washington and said the facts of the plan were not in dispute.

But he also declined to say whether U.S. officials believed that the alleged scheme was endorsed at the very highest levels of the Iranian regime, though ascribed it to a pattern of "dangerous and reckless" behavior by Tehran.

Two people were killed in a clash between Jaafar and Rifai Families in Sharawineh Neighborhood in Baalbak on Thursday.

According to NNA, a person from Jaafar family was shot dead as youths from his family were trying to kidnap a youth from Rifai family in Sharawinah neighborhood in Baalbek, while a ten year old child was killed by stray bullets.

Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun stressed on Thursday that "all countries who attempted to put its hands on Lebanon are being punished today."

During the October 13,1990 Memorial, Aoun said that the Free Patriotic Movement is "determined to continue on the martyrs' path which had been entrusted to them", adding that "we will never bow down to any intimidation."

Britain's Foreign Office has again summoned the Syrian ambassador to London over the alleged intimidation of exiled activists, Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday, urging Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

It is the third time this year that Syrian ambassador Sami Khiyami has been summoned by the British government amid unrest in the Arab nation, while it also rescinded his invitation to Prince William's wedding in April.

Norwegian extremist Anders Behring Breivik, who has confessed to twin attacks in July that killed 77 people, will be allowed out of solitary confinement but will still be subjected to heavy restrictions, police said Thursday.

"We will not extend the solitary confinement beyond October 17," police prosecutor Christian Hatlo told reporters.