Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri said on Monday that reports that he had escaped an assassination attempt were only news broadcasted through BlackBerry phones.

He said on Twitter that he will not “give any more information” about those allegations.

The opposition Muslim Brotherhood accused the Arab League of seeking to "cover up the crimes" of the Syrian regime, after the pan-Arab organization decided to extend its observer mission.

"It is clear that the observer mission in Syria seeks to cover up the crimes of the Syrian regime by giving it the time and opportunity to kill our people and break their will," Brotherhood spokesman Zuhair Salem said.

A parliamentary committee grilled Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn on Monday over the controversy that erupted after he alleged that members of al-Qaida were entering the eastern border town of Arsal under the guise of Syrian opposition activists.

MTV quoted Ghosn as telling the meeting of the defense, interior and municipalities committee that he didn't intend to say that al-Qaida has a presence in Arsal.

Israel is concerned Hizbullah will try to attack Israelis overseas in the coming weeks and ahead of the fourth anniversary of the assassination of the party’s military commander Imad Mughniyeh, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Mughniyeh was killed in a car bombing in Syria on Feb. 12, 2008. Hizbullah has accused Israel's intelligence service Mossad of assassinating him.

Syrian security forces and pro-regime militias on Sunday shot and killed at least 17 civilians as troops and deserters engaged in deadly battles, activists and a human rights group said.

The latest violence came as the Arab League said its controversial observer mission in Syria would continue despite "harassment" by both the government and the opposition.

Arab ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday gave observers in Syria the green light to continue their mission and called for an "immediate" end to the violence there.

The Arab ministerial committee on Syria "has decided to give Arab League observers the necessary time to continue their mission according to the protocol," which states that the mission is for the duration of one month.

The Lebanese army command urged politicians on Sunday not to invest security issues for political objectives, saying they should preserve stability instead.

The communique said the army’s role in preserving the security of the Lebanese was above all consideration but “called for avoiding the discussion of highly dangerous security issues or using them for political purposes out of keenness on general stability.”

A large Russian naval flotilla led by an aircraft carrier has docked in the Syrian port of Tartus in what Damascus state media hailed on Sunday as a show of solidarity by close ally Moscow.

The six-day port call by the carrier group in the Mediterranean port where Russia has a recently expanded naval base is intended to boost ties at a time when President Bashar Assad's government is under mounting Western and Arab pressure over its bloody crackdown on dissent, the Syrian press said.

The U.N. Security Council this week returns to the battle over Syria's deadly crackdown on protests -- but opponents of U.N. action, led by Russia, keep trying to switch the debate to Libya.

Western nations have been infuriated and frustrated by demands by Russia and others for an inquiry into the NATO airstrikes in Libya which they use as a reason to oppose U.N. action in Syria. US ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, calls it a "bogus" move, hiding other motives.

Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi confirmed on Sunday that relations between Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat and the Assad regime have reached a low point over the situation in Syria.

In remarks to pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, Aridi said: “Contacts between MP Walid Jumblat and the Syrian regime have been cut over the differences on the situation in Syria.”