Interior Minister Marwan Charbel denied that the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau is randomly distributing arms among the people, An Nahar newspaper reported on Saturday.

“This will never happen under my tenure,” he stressed.

A cautious calm has fallen over Tripoli following Friday’s unrest between gunmen in the rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen, as media reports said that intermittent gunfire was heard near the area on Saturday morning.

The unrest broke out when Bab al-Tabbaneh residents staged a demonstration in support of the Syrian people, while the other neighborhood staged a demonstration in support for the Syrian regime.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati on Friday described as “suspicious” the timing of the deadly clashes that erupted earlier in the day between gunmen from Tripoli’s rival neighborhoods of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh.

“We stress that civil peace is a ‘red line’ and we shall not compromise it,” Miqati vowed at a press conference he held in Tripoli -- where he was previously scheduled, together with the northern city’s ministers, to hold a popular gathering to receive congratulations on the formation of the new cabinet.

The head of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Mohammed Raad stated on Friday that Hizbullah is committed to all the agreements the Lebanese have reached since the signing of the Taef Accord in 1989.

He said: “We don’t support spiteful and vengeful practices.”

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea criticized on Friday claims that the new government has garnered several seats for the country’s Christians, saying that the ministers will not serve their portfolios and sect, but only those who appointed them.

He asked before a visiting delegation: “How can the Christians benefit from confronting the decisions of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and the international and Arab communities?”

Ten soldiers were injured on Friday when an army Humvee overturned on the Aqoura-Mneitra road in a mountainous area of the district of Jbeil, the National News Agency reported.

NNA said that the Lebanese Red Cross took the wounded soldiers to Notre Dame de Secours hospital in Jbeil.

The first dispute among members of the committee drafting the government policy statement erupted on Thursday between Prime Minister Najib Miqati and members of the Free Patriotic Movement, reported Al-Liwaa newspaper on Friday.

It centered on Miqati’s opposition to Ministers Walid al-Daouq and Jebran Bassil joining the committee.

Former chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis has accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of ordering the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri for allegedly seeking to topple his regime.

Mehlis said in an interview with the German radio Deutsche Welle on Thursday that Assad ordered Hariri’s Feb. 2005 killing after Damascus “suspected that he was seeking to topple the Syrian regime and disarm Hizbullah in cooperation with France and U.S.”

The cabinet of Premier Najib Miqati is not expected to take decisions on major appointments in state institutions except for the renewal of Central Bank governor Riyad Salameh’s mandate, ministerial sources said.

The sources told An Nahar daily published Friday that the renewal of Salameh for a fourth term will be made as soon as the government receives parliament’s vote of confidence.

Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet will head to Beirut on Tuesday to follow-up the investigation into the abduction of seven Estonian tourists in the Bekaa valley in March.

An Nahar newspaper reported on Friday that Paet will visit Lebanon to get the latest updates on the probe into the kidnapping and the location of the abductees.