One person was wounded on Wednesday as unknown gunmen opened fire at Arab Democratic Party media official Abdul Latif Saleh in the northern city of Tripoli.

Saleh, who escaped unharmed, told LBCI TV that the shots were fired towards him in Tripoli's al-Omari Street.

President Michel Suleiman stressed on Wednesday that the capabilities of the Lebanese army should be fortified, pointing out that the military can receive any type of weapons it needs.

“There are no banned arms,” Suleiman said after a short visit to the Headquarters of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the southern town of Naqoura accompanied by his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto.

Lebanese Sky News Arabia cameraman Samir Kassab, who has gone missing in Syria in October last year, is reported to be held captive in the northern province of al-Riqqa, media reports said on Wednesday.

According to al-Joumhouria newspaper, Kassab is held in Syria's al-Riqqa along with the Abu Dhabi-based Sky News Arabia crew, who were abducted with the Lebanese cameraman, and several other journalists and French doctors.

Lebanon has come at the bottom of a ranking of women in the lower house or single house of parliament in The Women in Politics Map 2014, launched by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and U.N. Women.

The research, which was released on Tuesday, gave Lebanon a 3.1 percent of female representation, putting it 139th in the rankings.

A U.S. defense official has warned that extremist groups could carry out terrorist attacks against the Lebanese army and state institutions, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday.

The Pentagon official, who was not named, expressed fears that the terrorist networks would attack the military and some government buildings after making several threats in that regard.

Speaker Nabih Berri expressed resentment on Wednesday over the failure of the ministerial panel drafting a government policy statement to reach agreement over controversial issues, adding that March 8 coalition is holding onto the resistance clause.

“The remaining timeframe for the panel to draft the policy statement ends next week,” Berri warned in comments published in As Safir newspaper, calling on all sides to exert efforts to find common grounds.

Speaker Nabih Berri and Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat have decided to wait for a rally organized by the March 14 alliance on Friday to make their proposal to resolve the policy statement deadlock, media reports said.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam called for a cabinet meeting on Thursday to take an “appropriate decision” on the dispute between March 14 and the Hizbullah-led March 8 camp over the resistance clause after a seven-member committee failed in its tenth meeting to resolve the row.

Interior Miniser Nouhad al-Mashnouq stated on Tuesday that Lebanon has taken a “clear position” on all forms of extremist terrorism.

He added in statement: “We understand Saudi Arabia's recent designation of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah in the kingdom, and al-Nusra Front as terrorist.”

The panel drafting a government policy statement failed on Tuesday to agree on a draft that meets the demands of the rival March 8 and 14 camps.

It therefore decided to refer the issue to the cabinet, which will convene on Thursday to take the appropriate stance on the matter, said the premiership.

The Change and Reform parliamentary bloc on Tuesday warned that a power vacuum in the country would be “fatal” to its political system, urging a speedy adoption of the new cabinet's policy statement.

“Is it true that we're unable to draft an acceptable policy statement for a cabinet that will last two or three months? The cabinet's mission is preserving security and preparing for the presidential vote, so how can it preserve them through vacuum?” MP Ibrahim Kanaan said during a press conference he held after the bloc's weekly meeting in Rabiyeh.