A soldier whose relatives blocked the only highway connecting the capital to southern Lebanon on Monday to protest his “disappearance” has showed up one day too late for work, state-run National News Agency reported.

“He had been missing from his home since yesterday morning over personal reasons,” NNA said.

Several al-Mustaqbal movement officials said on Monday that the security forces should have access to telecom data to avert any possible assassination attempt.

In remarks to Radio Orient, al-Mustaqbal movement politburo member Mustafa Alloush said: “Access to the telecom data averts many disasters.”

News about the alleged assassination attempt of the head of the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch, Col. Wissam al-Hassan, revealed that Speaker Nabih Berri and Progressive Socialist Party MP Walid Jumblat might also be targeted, according to newspapers published on Monday.

An Nahar daily reported that security agencies urged Berri and Jumblat to take precautions as they move from and into their residences in Ain al-Tineh and Clemenceau.

Almost two weeks before the anniversary of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s Feb. 14, 2005 assassination, the Mustaqbal movement hasn’t so far announced any plans on whether it will hold a rally.

The movement’s logistics official, Saleh Faroukh, told An Nahar in remarks published Monday that “the decision hasn’t been taken” yet.

Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare refused to postpone the release of a new indictment until the renewal of the STL’s cooperation protocol, according to al-Liwaa newspaper published Monday.

An opposition parliamentary source told the daily that Bellemare’s discussions with Lebanese officials during his farewell visit to Beirut last week increased the political tension in the country.

Confusion on telecom data has become a new source of contention after Telecommunications Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui reportedly withheld information from the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch over an alleged plot to assassinate its chief Col. Wissam al-Hassan.

According to An Nahar daily published Monday, Sehnaoui, who is loyal to Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun, gave the Intelligence Branch information on telecom data on Friday for only 24 hours after he was informed about the alleged plot.

Several families in the northern Lebanese border towns of Mashta Hassan and Mashta Hammoud have received information that two Lebanese citizens and a Syrian man were killed and two Syrians wounded when they came under gunfire on the al-Jaafariyat bridge in the Syrian town of Tal Kalakh, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Sunday, as another report spoke of a 9-strong Lebanese armed group led by an Iraqi man.

NNA said the “unconfirmed reports have sparked a major tumult in both border towns, to which local and foreign media outlets have flocked in a bid to scrutinize the authenticity of these reports.”

The Lebanese Army Intelligence has arrested a three-member drug trafficking gang in the southern town of Harouf, Voice of Lebanon radio station (93.3) reported Sunday.

It said the arrest was made at dawn Sunday.

A number of Syrian supporters of President Bashar Assad held a sit-in outside the Russian embassy in Beirut on Sunday to express their gratitude for Moscow’s support, Voice of Lebanon radio station reported.

VDL (93.3) said that security forces deployed in the area to prevent any clash with anti-Assad activists.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc leader MP Fouad Saniora slammed Free Patriotic Movement chief Michel Aoun on Sunday for calling on people to demonstrate against severe electricity rationing.

“What FPM chief Michel Aoun said lately is an insult to all the Lebanese,” Saniora told delegations from Sidon visiting him at his office in al-Hlaliyeh.