Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat responded Friday to a threat from the Islamic State group that held him along with two other top Lebanese leaders responsible for the possible execution of three of the captive Lebanese servicemen.

The army on Friday arrested two Syrians in the Bekaa region on charges of involvement in the deadly August clashes in the northeastern border town of Arsal, in which several troops and civilians were killed.

A French-speaking jihadist threatened Friday to execute Lebanese soldiers held hostage by the Islamic State group, saying three prominent anti-IS Lebanese politicians would be responsible for their deaths.

The threat was made in a video Agence France Presse obtained from a Salafist cleric, Wissam al-Masri, who is mediating the release of 25 police and soldiers held by IS and the Syrian branch of al-Qaida the al-Nusra Front.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi called on Friday on the judges of spiritual courts to speed up religious trials but issue fair rulings by preserving justice.

“It is up to the judges to achieve justice, which is the essence of peace,” al-Rahi told the judges during his yearly meting with them in Bkirki.

A Mustaqbal Movement delegation returned overnight to Beirut aboard a private jet after a short visit to the Saudi capital Riyadh, the state-run National News Agency reported on Friday.

The news agency said that the delegation, which was headed by head of al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc MP Fouad Saniora, discussed with the movement's chief Saad Hariri the latest developments in Lebanon.

Nearly 30,000 Syrian children born as refugees in Lebanon are in a legal limbo, not registered with any government, exposing them to the risk of a life of statelessness deprived of basic rights.

It is a problem that is replicated, to varying degrees, in nations across the Middle East where more than 3.3 million Syrians have found safe haven from the intractable civil war in their homeland.

Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous was bestowed recently with the Golden Order of Merit for Wise Leadership in the Arab World.

The award was granted by the Tatweej Academy for Excellence in the Arab Region Awards and hosted in Dubai.

The army intelligence has detained a prominent leader at the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who was allegedly planning to carry out terrorist acts in Lebanon.

A military source told al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Friday, that the arrest was carried out two days ago, without revealing any further details.

Speaker Nabih Berri has asked Lebanon's Ambassador to Washington to inquire the U.S. administration about the reasons behind the procrastination of a top energy diplomat in resolving the territorial dispute between Lebanon and Israel.

Berri told his visitors on Thursday that he asked Ambassador Antoine Chedid to ask the State Department on why Amos Hochstein has stopped his mission.

The Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch has arrested a network allied with the Syrian regime that kidnaps opposition members and hands them over to the authorities in Damascus, al-Mustaqbal daily reported on Friday.

The newspaper quoted a high-ranking security official as saying that the cell is led by Majed Mansour, a Baath Party official in the West Bekaa.