Speaker Nabih Berri could call for a parliamentary session next week to vote on the extension of the legislature's mandate, parliamentary sources said Saturday.

The sources told several local dailies that the session would likely be held on Thursday, before the end of the ordinary session on May 31.

The representatives of National Struggle Front leader Walid Jumblat in the government will boycott a cabinet session next week over his rejection to go ahead with the June parliamentary elections due to the worsening security situation in the country, media reports said Saturday.

Several dailies expected the three ministers representing Jumblat in caretaker Premier Najib Miqati's government to boycott Monday's session that is aimed at forming the authority that will supervise the polls and guaranteeing the funds necessary for the interior ministry to organize the elections.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah will make a televised speech on Saturday on the occasion of Liberation Day at a time when his party's involvement in the Syrian war is drawing largescale local and international condemnation.

Political sources expected Nasrallah to snap back at the parties that have expressed frustration at Hizbullah's support for the Syrian army against the rebels mainly in the town of al-Qusayr.

The Phalange party has yet to nominate its candidates for the parliamentary elections although its main allies in the March 14 coalition – al-Mustaqbal movement and the Lebanese Forces – registered for the polls.

An Nahar daily said Saturday that the Phalange could reject filing applications for its candidates for holding onto a decision reached in Bkirki along with the three main Christian parties not to run in the elections based on the 1960 law, which they described as “dead and buried.”

The United States expressed concern Friday that Lebanon could find itself dragged into Syria's civil war and expressed support for efforts by the country's army to halt an outbreak of fighting.

"The United States is deeply concerned about the situation in Lebanon," State Department deputy spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Friday announced his support for extending parliament's term, rejecting “the elections farce” and defending the army against verbal attacks from Tripoli politicians.

“Amid these bleak circumstances, I don't think that it is useful to engage in the elections farce,” said Jumblat after meeting Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain al-Tineh.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Friday rejected a return to the 1960 electoral law, urging Speaker Nabih Berri to hold a parliamentary session aimed at voting on a new law.

“Holding a cabinet session to form the electoral supervisory commission and take the necessary measures to hold the polls under the 1960 law is against the National Pact and thus illegitimate despite being legal,” Geagea said in a press release.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Friday called for holding the parliamentary elections on time and stressed the importance of sparing Lebanon the impact of regional conflicts.

“We categorically reject extension (of parliament's term) and elections must be held according to any current or new law, and laws must not be an excuse” for postponing elections, al-Rahi said at the Rafik Hariri International Airport upon his return from a 56-day tour of Latin America.

Hassan is just 18 and a fighter with Hizbullah, which sent nearly 2,000 men to support the Syrian army's assault on the central town of Qusayr this week.

His father Ali was also among the ranks of the Hizbullah men battling rebels in the key town, many of them holed up in tunnels.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati, Premier-designate Tammam Salam, and former PM Fouad Saniora and Omar Karami condemned on Friday the clashes in the northern city of Tripoli, calling on security agencies to tackle the situation.

They said in a statement after meeting at the Grand Serail: “The dangerous political and security situation requires speeding up the formation of a new government that can take the necessary measures to tackle the unrest.”