The Lebanese army and police arrested on Thursday several suspects including a Lebanese and a Syrian on suspicion of having ties with terrorist organizations.

Judicial police apprehended Ali Mohammed Tareq Safsouf in the area of al-Ayrounieh in the northern Zgharta district, said the state-run National News Agency.

Three Syrian refugee children burned to death in a fire that destroyed their makeshift wooden hut in the northern region of Akkar on Thursday, a security services official told AFP.

The three children, two sisters and their cousin, were living in the hut built a year ago on the roof of a building in the town of Bhannine.

Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiyah lashed out at Hizbullah on Thursday, stressing that the Gulf state is in a rift with the party.

“Hizbullah went back to the Syrians who welcomed it (in July 2006 war with Israel) to kill and displace them,” al-Attiyah said in an interview with the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.

The International Support Group for Lebanon is preparing for a new meeting in Beirut, the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat reported on Thursday.

The report said that high-level contacts are currently underway to hold a meeting, which is expected to focus on the importance of ending the presidential stalemate as a key solution for various dangers and crises confronting Lebanon.

Military Commander General Jean Qahwaji criticized on Thursday Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun, stressing that any possible extension for his term is “legitimate and legal according to article 55 of the law defense.”

“Some have a problem with others but are addressing me. They chose the wrong address for their battle,” Qahwaji's visitors quoted him as saying in comments published in As Safir newspaper.

An Internal Security Forces officer was injured on Thursday and a suspect killed during a raid in the northern city of Tripoli, the state-run National News Agency reported.

ISF Intelligence Branch Maj. Nazih Saleh was wounded when Wael Kamel Youssef, who is wanted on several arrest warrants, tossed a grenade in al-Beddawi area at dawn, it said.

Qatar will likely renew its mediation with al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front on the case of Lebanese soldiers and policemen taken captive by jihadists last year, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Thursday.

Qatar said in December that it suspended its negotiations with the militants after its envoy failed to resolve the crisis.

Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji headed to the Saudi capital Riyadh to take part in a two-day meeting for military leaders from more than 20 partner nations in a U.S.-led coalition to degrade and destroy Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Qahwaji traveled on Wednesday night to Saudi Arabia.

Officials close to Prime Minister Tammam Salam have downplayed the suspension of cabinet sessions amid reports that the government could meet next week despite the controversy on its working mechanism.

“Salam has never linked the cabinet session with the mechanism,” the officials told An Nahar daily published on Thursday.

The Internal Security Forces reportedly sacked two prison wardens at Roumieh after thorough investigations on charges of facilitating the smuggling of drugs into the facility.

According to al-Akhbar newspaper published on Thursday prison warden Colonel Gh.M. and block D previous warden lieutenant colonel S.M. were discharged from service and will have to face the military court that will try them.