Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday congratulated Lebanon on the formation of Premier Najib Miqati’s cabinet and expressed hope that all the countries in the region would live in peace.

Benedict told Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi that he hoped the government would “succeed since Lebanon is facing great challenges whether due to the local economic crisis” or regional events.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel reportedly froze a decision by Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi to promote more than 400 officers.

Al-Akhbar daily said Saturday that Charbel ordered a freeze on the promotion of the 400 policemen to sergeants.

The nomination of Marwan Kheireddine to replace Lebanese Democratic Party leader Talal Arslan in the cabinet is facing obstacles after some parties objected the nomination unless Kheireddine vows not to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

The pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat reported on Saturday that Kheireddine’s uncle MP Anwar Khalil, who is a Free Patriotic Movement ally, objects naming him as state minister unless he guarantees not to announce his candidacy for the Druze seat in Hasbaya-Marjayoun in the next parliamentary elections.

Hizbullah is moving its arsenal from Syria over fears that the anti-Assad demonstrations would lead to regime change, a Western expert closely following up Iranian-Syrian ties told the French daily Le Figaro on Saturday.

The expert confirmed that Western intelligence had monitored the movement of trucks from the Syrian border to eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa valley.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri hasn’t decided yet to return to Beirut over security fears, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Saturday.

“The ex-PM’s return to Lebanon is connected to security issues,” sources told the newspaper.

Premier Najib Miqati has informed President Michel Suleiman and Speaker Nabih Berri about his vision on the clause of the international tribunal in the cabinet draft policy statement, informed sources said Saturday.

While the sources refused to give details on Miqati’s proposed formula, they told al-Joumhouria daily that the prime minister asked both Suleiman and Berri to study his proposal and give him their remarks.

The March 14-led opposition slammed Hizbullah Chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speech, saying the way PM Najib Miqati was nominated confirms that the cabinet was not formed in Lebanon.

“The coup on (former PM Saad) Hariri’s cabinet … confirms that the appointment and formation of the government was not Lebanese at all,” March 14 sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper on Saturday.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's charges that the Central Intelligence Agency had infiltrated his group in Lebanon were "empty accusations," a U.S. embassy spokesperson said Friday.

"These are the same kinds of empty accusations that we have repeatedly heard from Hizbullah," the spokesperson told Agence France Presse shortly after Nasrallah made the allegations in a televised speech.

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday announced that members of his party had confessed to being CIA agents and accused arch-foe Israel of turning to the U.S. spy agency when it failed to infiltrate his Iran-backed group.

In the first such acknowledgment of infiltration since the group's founding in the 1980's, Nasrallah refused to disclose the identities of the two party members but said a third case was under investigation, slamming the U.S. embassy in Lebanon as a "den of spies."

Eight wounded Syrians were hospitalized in northern Lebanon Friday after entering the country through an illegal crossing at the border with Syria, a Lebanese security official told Agence France Presse.

"Eight Syrians with gunshot wounds were evacuated from their country via the unofficial crossing of al-Qusair in the region of Akkar" at Lebanon's northern border with Syria, the official said on condition of anonymity.