Prime Minister Najib Miqati stated on Thursday that former minister and MP Michel Samaha’s arrest was based on a judicial request.

He said: “The investigations with Samaha are linked to security issues, not the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.”

The Israeli intelligence service intercepted several telephone calls between Lebanon and Burgas in Bulgaria two months before the bombing that killed five Israeli tourists and their local bus driver, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

“The volume (of calls) intensified in the three days leading up to” the bombing, a senior Israeli government official told the newspaper on condition of anonymity.

A gang comprised of thugs in the southern city of Tyre resumed its endeavors in the city, terrorizing the residents amid the security chaos in the country, An Nahar newspaper reported on Thursday.

According to the report, the gang’s kingpin known as Wassef S. reiterates to the residents of Tyre that he enjoys a “special judicial care,” which has always saved him from continuing his sentence at prison.

The Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch arrested former MP and cabinet minister Michel Samaha on Thursday morning "for security reasons," the acting general prosecutor said.

Samaha was arrested following raids on his houses in Beirut’s Ashrafiyeh district and the North Metn town of Jwar al-Khensahara.

The March 14 opposition alliance, which has severely criticized a new electoral draft-law, is gearing up to reject it in parliament and holding intense meetings to draft a new law in coordination with Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat, high-ranking opposition sources said.

The sources told An Nahar daily that the March 14 forces will not only work on toppling the draft-law, but will seek through small coordination committees along with centrist Jumblat to work on reaching common points that would form the nucleus of a new draft.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati considered on Thursday al-Mustaqbal movement’s reaction regarding the cabinet’s approval of the electoral draft law “unjustified” and “incomprehensible” given that it hasn’t been put into effect yet.

“The parliament will decide upon the issue and will adopt the decision that it considers adequate therefore there was no need for all this contrived fuss,” Miqati told As Safir newspaper.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is scheduled to arrive in Lebanon on a two-day official visit next Thursday to meet with senior Lebanese officials.

The FM will hold talks with President Michel Suleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Najib Miqati and his counterpart Adnan Mansour.

President Michel Suleiman stressed on Thursday that he is committed to proportional representation for the parliamentary electoral law, saying that the majority of the Lebanese supported this proposal.

He hoped that parliament would address the possibility of adopting small electoral districts during the elections “in order to garner the support of as many sides as possible.”

MP Sami Gemayel, Phalange Party’s Central Committee Coordinator, on Wednesday voiced rejection of the draft electoral law adopted by the cabinet, saying it was tailored to serve the electoral interests of the ruling coalition and stressing that “it will not pass in parliament.”

“We were clear in the Bkirki committee and we were working on two laws: the first, which we favor, was a law based on small electorates comprising two to three MPs, and we were putting the final touches, and the second option was the choice of proportional representation but with electorates other than those proposed by cabinet,” Gemayel said in an interview with MTV.

A man was killed and several people were wounded in a Syria-related clash between residents from two villages in northern Lebanon on Wednesday, officials told Agence France Presse.

"A man was killed and several injured when men from Sunni-majority Akroum village clashed with the majority Shiite village of Hourani," a security official said on condition of anonymity.