Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat has rejected the so-called self-security, reiterating his warning from the rise of terrorist threats in Lebanon and inquiring the U.S. about planned airstrikes against jihadists in the region.

“Self-security leads to total chaos,” Jumblat warned in remarks published in As Safir newspaper on Friday amid reports that certain Lebanese factions were arming themselves to confront terrorists.

French Ambassador to Lebanon Patrice Paoli ruled out on Friday any foreign intervention in the presidential elections, saying there is no “veto” on any candidate.”

“The Lebanese should agree on a new head of state... Which is a necessity in order to rebuild the state institutions and revive them,” Paoli said in an interview published in al-Joumhouria newspaper.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil stressed Thursday during talks in Jeddah the importance of not “excluding any country or party” that is willing to counter the Islamic State and asked for military assistance to the Lebanese Army.

“There shouldn't be any exclusion of countries or parties that are willing to counter IS, since there is no reason or justification for such a rejection,” said Bassil during a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Arab and Turkish counterparts aimed at building an anti-IS coalition.

Ten Arab states, including heavyweight Saudi Arabia, agreed Thursday in Jeddah to rally behind Washington in the fight against Islamic State jihadists, as it vies to build an international coalition.

In the final statement, the 10 countries and Washington declared their "shared commitment to stand united against the threat posed by all terrorism, including the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant."

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi Thursday played down the drop in oil prices saying this is not the first time crude prices slumped.

"Prices of oil always go up and down so I really don't know why the big fuss about it this time," Nuaimi told reporters ahead of a regular meeting for oil ministers of the energy-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states in Kuwait City.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun have agreed on the necessity to elect a president who best represents Christians as a report emerged that France is seeking to convince Iran and the Vatican to support a consensus candidate.

Al-Liwaa daily on Thursday quoted a Hizbullah official as saying that Nasrallah and Aoun also agreed during their latest meeting that the new president should be “strong.”

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke by phone with Saudi King Abdullah on Wednesday and met his top national security and intelligence advisors ahead of his prime time speech on the Islamic State.

Obama called Abdullah from the Oval Office, underlining Saudi Arabia's role as a potentially key member of the international coalition Obama is trying to build to take on the jihadist group.

In finally tackling the jihadist threat in Syria and Iraq, Washington and Gulf Arab states are confronting a "monster" that has come back to bite them, partly through their own failings, analysts say.

After a stop Wednesday in Baghdad, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will hold talks Thursday with Arab states and Turkey in Saudi Arabia to broaden an international alliance set to act against the Islamic State movement (IS).

Saudi authorities beheaded a national for murder on Wednesday, the interior ministry said, a day after a U.N. appeal for an immediate moratorium on their use of the death penalty.

Hussein Daghriri was executed in the southwestern province of Jizan after being sentenced to death for fatally stabbing fellow tribesman Nayef Daghriri in a dispute, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

The singing of a contract between France and Saudi Arabia to provide Lebanon with military assistance is being delayed over a political decision linked to the Lebanese presidential elections, Saudi sources said.

The sources told An Nahar newspaper published on Wednesday that it was up to Saudi King Abdullah to sign the contract but the delay was caused by a “political decision” linked to the outcome of the polls.