A security patrol came under fire in an area bordering Syria in the northern Akkar district, the state-run National News Agency reported Friday.

NNA said the vehicle was targeted by gunfire from Syria near the town of Qashlaq.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan on Friday called on the Lebanese to hold onto the state and its constitutional institutions and rejected the use of religion as a cover to gain power.

“Our project is the unified state and the single army and coexistence,” Daryan said in a statement on the occasion of the Islamic New Year.

The analysis of the YouTube video of defected soldier Abdul Qader Akkoumi, who has been reportedly ambushed along with the terror network in the town of Asoun in the northern area of Dinniyeh, was the main thread in unveiling the location of the busted cell.

According to As Safir newspaper published on Friday, the YouTube video of Akkoumi's defection from the army, in which he announced joining the ranks of the Islamic State jihadist group, was shot by a cellular phone on the outskirts of Dinniyeh.

A top European Union official said he informed Lebanese officials during his visit to Beirut that the presidential and parliamentary elections should be held to have a healthy democracy

Hugues Mingarelli, who is the Managing Director for North Africa, Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran and Iraq at the European External Action Service, said: “You have a democracy and there are routine elections and a multi-party system.”

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said the stance of Lebanon and Jordan at the upcoming Berlin conference on the Syrian refugees will be united.

In remarks to An Nahar daily published Friday, Derbas said that both countries are suffering from the same repercussions of the Syrians crisis that resulted in millions of refugees.

The Army Command will recruit around 1,000 soldiers starting next week as the military is battling Islamist militants, who are entrenched on the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal on the porous Syrian-Lebanese border.

An Nahar newspaper reported on Friday that another 1,000 soldiers will be recruited in January 2015.

Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will reportedly visit Lebanon during the upcoming days.

According to al-Liwaa newspaper published on Friday, Dempsey will travel to Lebanon to discuss the latest developments in light of Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji's recent visit to the U.S. capital Washington.

General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim has denied that the Lebanese government received written demands from jihadists to set free the soldiers and policemen that they kidnapped in August.

Ibrahim said in remarks to al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Friday that news about all the names mentioned on lists are nothing but media reports.

A retired army soldier was critically wounded in a drive-by shooting on Thursday evening in the northern city of Tripoli, in the latest such attack against the military institution.

“Two masked men riding a motorbike opened fire at retired soldier Khaled al-Youssef in the Ibn Sina Street in Tripoli's al-Qobbeh, riddling his body with several bullets,” state-run National News Agency reported.

Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday voiced concern over possible further delay of the $3 billion Saudi grant to the Lebanese army, following similar remarks by Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat.

“There are concerns that the Saudi grant might be delayed or called off despite the dire need for it, and delay would strip it of its value,” Berri said in remarks to al-Manar TV.