President Michel Suleiman stressed on Saturday that he will not retract his stance concerning ex-Minister Michel Samaha’s case, pointing out that he informed the Syrian authorities his position in Tehran.

“Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem requested our meeting in Tehran, and I thank him for his initiative,” Suleiman said during the opening ceremony of Amchit fishing port.

The March 14 General Secretariat held an extraordinary meeting on Saturday to condemn the “unjust” release of three officers linked to the death of Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Wahed in May.

It said in a statement: “The timing of their release is suspicious and we will respond to it after Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Lebanon.”

Syrian troops backed by tanks and helicopters repelled a rebel attack on an army base in the northern city of Aleppo on Saturday after a 20-hour battle, military officials and witnesses said.

The government forces pushed rebels out of the Hanano military base, a fortress-like compound in the east of the city, parts of which rebels claimed to have captured on Friday, they said.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri rejected accusations that the March 14 camp is arming the Syrian opposition, reported the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Saturday.

He told the daily: “We provide it with humanitarian and political support.”

Mortar rounds or rockets fired from Syria killed a young Iraqi girl and wounded four people in a border town in western Iraq, an army officer and the interior ministry said on Saturday.

Captain Ali Juwayir from Anbar Operations Command said four mortar rounds hit al-Qaim shortly before midnight on Friday, adding that two homes in the town were struck.

Iran hit out at Canada's decision to break off diplomatic ties, with foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast accusing the Canadian government of being "under the influence of the Zionist regime."

Canada closed its Tehran embassy on Friday and ordered Iranian diplomats be expelled, in a severance of ties in which it accused the Islamic Republic of being the biggest threat to world peace.

Russia will press the U.N. Security Council to this month endorse a Syria peace accord that was brokered in Geneva and has since split world powers, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday.

"There is a plan to hold a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council with the participation of ministers on the Syrian issue," Lavrov said in the Russian city of Vladivostok after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The head of the Free Patriotic Movement MP Michel Aoun announced on Friday that any change in Syria “will destroy Lebanon.”

He warned: “Any change in Syria without knowledge of the country's new ruling regime will destroy us and Lebanon.”

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour announced Friday that he “will not support a camp against another” during his chairmanship of the current session of the Arab League, saying he does not care about the domestic “overbidding” in this regard.

“Lebanon will not enter the mazes of Arab politics and will not support a camp against another,” Mansour said in an interview with NBN television.

Lebanon has absorbed tens of thousands of refugees fleeing from the conflict in neighboring Syria in recent months and many of them are living in overcrowded conditions, suffering psychological distress, fearful for their safety and unable to afford medical care, said the international medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in a report released Friday.

“Most refugees are settling in low socioeconomic regions of Lebanon, placing an additional burden on already overstretched resources. Gaps are appearing in refugees’ access to medical care, particularly hospital-level care and treatment for chronic diseases,” MSF said.