Al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front accused on Friday Hizbullah of planting a landmine that exploded in an army patrol on the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal.

Three soldiers were wounded in a roadside bombing that targeted their patrol in al-Raayan road in Arsal's Wadi Ata region as unknown gunmen opened fire at another patrol heading to inspect the site of the explosion.

Kataeb Party chief Amin Gemayel insists on boycotting parliamentary sessions until lawmakers elect a new head of state, holding local parties responsible for the ongoing vacuum at the Baabda Palace and undermining the foreign factor.

“Each side considers itself right,” Gemayel said in an interview with al-Akhbar newspaper on Friday.

Speaker Nabih Berri has discussed with al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc leader MP Fouad Saniora the political crises gripping the country, As Safir daily reported on Friday.

The newspaper quoted sources as saying that Saniora visited Berri along with Nader Hariri, the adviser of al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri.

British Ambassador Tom Fletcher has said that the election of a new president in Lebanon does not require the involvement of other countries, expressing disappointment at the failure of MPs to choose a head of state and warning of its dire consequences.

The constitution is clear in terms of the election of a new head of state, Fletcher told As Safir daily in an interview published on Friday.

Singer turned fugitive Islamist Fadel Shaker has reportedly opened a bakery and two pastry shops in the southern Ain el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Friday.

The daily reported that informants said the bakery is run by Mohammed Baydoun, who is also wanted by the judiciary.

A Peruvian judge has ordered a Lebanese man held for 18 months for investigation for entering the country with false documents and who authorities say belongs to Hizbullah.

Police arrested Mohamed Hamdar on Oct. 28, saying traces of explosives were found among his possessions.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Thursday said he supports going to parliamentary elections if the Constitutional Council decides to shorten the extended term of parliament, stressing that Saudi Arabia did not influence his party's decision to vote in favor of extension.

“If the Constitutional Council decides to shorten the extension period, we are with going to elections, even under the 1960 (electoral) law,” Geagea said in an interview on LBCI television.

Hizbullah secretary-general's political aide Hussein Khalil announced Thursday that Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun can be considered a “consensual” presidential candidate, describing the disagreement between the party and the movement over the extension of parliament's term as a “minor” issue.

“Our meeting today was aimed at reiterating that the relation between Hizbullah and the FPM has surpassed the memorandum of understanding to become an 'existential relation',” said Khalil after meeting Aoun in Rabieh.

The army managed Thursday to liberate a Syrian abductee in the Bekaa region and to arrest one of the kidnappers.

“As an intelligence patrol was trying to liberate Syrian abductee Raafat Youssef on the Bar Elias-Deir Zannoun road, the captor Abdul Rahman Issa Hussein, also a Syrian national, slammed one of the patrol's members with his car,” the army said in a statement.

Canada's top court refused Thursday to hear a university professor's final plea to halt his extradition to France, effectively ensuring he will face trial for the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue.

The decision brings to an end 60-year-old Hassan Diab's six-year legal battle to avoid what he said would be an unfair prosecution in France for a crime he insists he did not commit.