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.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan stressed on Thursday the need to elect a new president following last week's extension of parliament's term.

He said: “All lawmakers must take part in presidential elections sessions held at parliament.”

The Free Patriotic Movement submitted on Thursday a challenge before the Constitutional Council over the parliament's new term extension.

Change and Reform bloc secretary and FPM member MP Ibrahim Kanaan presented the challenge.

The Lebanese army said on Thursday it has arrested two terrorist leaders involved in attacks on the military during the clashes in northern Lebanon last month.

An army communique said the military intelligence apprehended on Wednesday Ayman Abdul Hamid Mheish who leads a terrorist group that was involved in a plot to kidnap Lebanese soldiers in the town of Bhannine on October 25.

Ministers engaged in a verbal spat over media outlets on Wednesday over the food safety scandal and the Health Minister Wael Abou Faour's technique in dealing with the matter.

Abou Faour slammed ministers and officials who criticized his ministry's food safety battle, revealing new names to the list of violating institutions as Tourism Minister Michel Pharaon said that the Health Ministry should be held accountable like the rest of the food safety violators.

Six people were injured in a horrible traffic accident on Thursday on Dahr al-Baidar highway in the eastern Bekaa.

A truck, car and a pickup truck collided in the area, injuring six passengers, the Traffic Management Center reported.

A French delegation is expected to visit Beirut this week for further talks with the Lebanese army command on the purchase of French weapons under a Saudi grant.

France and Saudi Arabia signed the agreement last week for Paris to provide the Lebanese military with the $3 billion worth of weapons paid for by Riyadh.