U.S. Ambassador David Hale is expected to visit Riyadh this weekend in an attempt to salvage the new government from the deadlock of the policy statement, al-Mustaqbal newspaper reported on Thursday.

The daily said Hale's expected talks with top Saudi officials are aimed at finding a solution to the impasse of the policy statement of Prime Minister Tammam Salam's government on the eve of the presidential elections.

The Qaida-inspired al-Nusra Front in Lebanon on Wednesday claimed responsibility for firing three rockets on the Bekaa town of al-Nabi Sheet, in the latest such attack this week.

“The heroes of al-Nusra Front in Lebanon shelled the lairs of the party of Iran (Hizbullah) with three Grad rockets in retaliation to its massacres in Syria,” the group said on its Twitter page.

President Michel Suleiman hoped on Wednesday that the international community will commit to pledges it had made towards Lebanon concerning tackling the Syrian refugees and assisting the Lebanese army.

He said: “We hope the international community will support the army to help it implement a defense strategy that I had proposed at the national dialogue.”

Maronite bishops regretted on Wednesday Hizbullah's campaign against President Michel Suleiman and condemned the "assault on his dignity" as the symbol of the nation's unity.

Following its monthly meeting under Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in Bkirki, the council of Maronite bishops “urged all parties to stop the campaign against the president … out of respect for the nation.”

Arab Democratic Party Secretary-General Rifaat Eid denied on Wednesday that his father and the party's leader and ex-MP, Ali Eid, had fled to the neighboring country Syria.

“My father is practicing his normal life in Hikr al-Dahri town in (the northern district of) Akkar,” Eid said in comments to LBCI.

Conflicting reports emerged on Wednesday on whether the Lebanese army opened anti-aircraft fire at Syrian warplanes that intensively hovered over regions the Lebanese border town of Arsal, in the eastern Bekaa.

MTV said that a Syrian airstrike targeted an area near a post for the Lebanese army in village of Aqba al-Mabeeda, prompting the army to open anti-aircraft fire.

Israel said Wednesday it fired at and hit two members of Hizbullah as they tried to plant a bomb near the Israeli-Syrian border, but Syrian state media accused the Jewish state of targeting its forces.

"Earlier today, two Hizbullah-affiliated terrorists were identified attempting to plant an explosive device near the Israel-Syria border in the northern Golan Heights,” the army said in a statement.

The al-Qaida-affiliated Al-Nusra Front in Syria and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant haven't taken a decision to “officially enter Lebanon,” as the two groups are still dealing with agents for them to “send messages to Hizbullah.”

“Both groups have the necessary logistic capabilities to carry out attack in Lebanon similar to those in Iraq but there's no decision yet to move the conflict to Lebanon,” a leader in al-Nusra Front said in comments published in al-Akhbar newspaper.

High-level contacts between the rival March 8 and 14 alliances failed to end the deadlock on the government's policy statement as both sides accused each other of not making enough concessions, local dailies reported Wednesday.

Al-Joumhouria newspaper said that top officials from both camps tried on Tuesday in vain to find an exit to the impasse, which lies on the resistance clause.

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq established a two-stage plan to resolve the situation at Roumieh prison and improve the conditions of the inmates, As Safir newspaper reported on Wednesday.

“I will rehabilitate the facility and dismantle the state that was established in it,” Mashnouq said in comments published in the newspaper.