Arrest warrants were issued on Monday against Naim Abbas, a top official in the al-Qaida-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades, and a female suspect on terrorism charges.

Military Examining Magistrate Judge Sawan issued arrest warrants against Abbas and Joumana Hmeid for belonging to an armed terrorist group for the purpose of carrying out terrorist attacks.

Police have arrested a Lebanese man, who has admitted to raping children in the northern city of Tripoli, the Internal Security Forces general command said Monday.

The 20-year-old suspect was arrested at a car wash in the Tripoli area of Abi Samra on Saturday, the ISF said in a communique.

President Michel Suleiman thanked on Monday Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, for Doha's role in the release in Syria of more than a dozen Greek Orthodox nuns.

A Baabda Palace statement said that during phone conversations, Suleiman also thanked the Syrian government and other parties involved in the release of the nuns in exchange for Syrian authorities setting free dozens of female prisoners.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat praised on Monday the release of the Maalula nuns, hoping that security agencies will put an end to abductions in Lebanon.

He said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa website: “All security agencies should be on alert to end the phenomenon of kidnappings in Lebanon.”

Head of al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc MP Fouad Saniora stressed on Monday that the political rift in Lebanon is the main cause of the poor economic growth and deflation.

“The decline in economic growth and deflation is considered a normal matter amid the current political and security situation,” Saniora said in comments published in al-Liwaa newspaper.

The March 8 and 14 alliances were on Monday still split over the resistance clause of the policy statement of Prime Minister Tammam Salam's government, putting its fate at risk as the constitution’s one-month deadline for a ministerial committee to agree on a blueprint expires on March 17.

Al-Mustaqbal MP Jean Oghassabian told Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) that the March 14 alliance can't accept the adoption of the resistance clause without putting it under the authority of the state.

A group of nuns abducted from the Syrian town of Maalula in December were released on Sunday evening and handed over to a Lebanese General Security delegation in the outskirts of the Bekaa border town of Arsal.

"The Maalula nuns have been freed and they are now in our custody," General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim told LBCI television.

The council of Arab foreign ministers decided Sunday during a meeting in Cairo to support the Lebanese government materially and financially to help it cope with the Syrian refugee crisis.

The council also agreed to ask the member states to share the burden, stressing that the refugees' presence in Lebanon is “temporary” and that efforts would be exerted to return them to their country as soon as possible.

Iraq's transport minister apologized anew on Sunday for a row in which a Lebanese airliner en route to Baghdad was ordered to turn back mid-flight to pick up his son.

Hadi al-Ameri pledged to turn his son in if an Iraqi investigation found he had carried out any wrongdoing and insisted he would personally bear the costs of the Middle East Airlines flight having to turn around while traveling from Beirut to Baghdad.

Deputy head of Hizbullah's Executive Council Sheikh Nabil Qaouq stressed Sunday that the policy statement of the new cabinet will be “born dead” if it fails to mention resistance against Israel.

“The resistance is the soul of the policy statement and any statement without it will be dead and soulless and it won't win the confidence of the Lebanese or the parliament,” Qaouq warned during a memorial service held by Hizbullah in the southern town of Majdal Zoun.