A Baalbek teenager has been released on Sunday after being kidnapped for four days, reported the National News Agency.

Ziad Khaled Abou Esper, 16, was apparently released after the security forces’ frequent raids in the Baalbek area forced the kidnappers to let him go, reported NNA.

Amid strict security measures and a heavy deployment of troops, Beirut’s Martyrs Square on Sunday was once again the scene of two rival yet peaceful demos supportive and critical of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Speaking at the anti-Assad rally, Salafist cleric Ahmed al-Asir, Imam of Sidon's Bilal bin Rabah mosque, condemned the international community’s refusal to intervene in Syria to end its crisis.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said on Saturday in its weekly report that the number of Syrians who had fled to Lebanon since the crisis in their country had reached 7,085.

The number increased since last week by 142, according to the U.N. organization’s statement.

Internal security forces detained two Syrian nationals allegedly involved in the murder of a Lebanese citizen at his residence in Jal el-Dib, the National News Agency reported on Saturday.

The two Syrian nationals confessed to killing George Kandarji after breaking into his house in Jal el-Dib for robbery.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri denied on Saturday that he had bought a 7-million-euro apartment in Paris for a Saudi official working in the Royal Diwan.

The report of al-Akhbar daily is a fabrication, Hariri’s press office said.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said that Lebanese security forces and the army will deploy en masse in downtown Beirut on Sunday amid planned sit-ins by pro- and anti-Assad regime demonstrators.

In remarks to LBC TV station on Saturday, Charbel said: “We will allow anyone wishing to demonstrate to go down to Martyrs’ Square tomorrow.”

Snow fell at 700 meters above sea level in certain areas on Saturday as a snowstorm that lashed Lebanon for three days would begin to subside on Sunday night, the Meteorology Department said.

At noon Saturday, the General Command of the Internal Security Forces said only four-wheelers can use the Dahr al-Baidar road that links Beirut to the Bekaa in eastern Lebanon.

A teenager was still being held hostage by his kidnappers on Saturday, three days after they abducted him from his father’s ranch in the Baalbek district, asking for a $150,000 ransom.

The National News Agency reported Friday that the three-member gang kidnapped 16-year-old Ziad Khaled Abou Esber from the cow ranch that lies in Adous valley on Wednesday night.

Eight people connected to a tribally-owned construction company were indicted by a federal grand jury in an elaborate kickback and money laundering scheme involving Iraqi construction projects, U.S. Attorney Kenneth J. Gonzales announced Friday.

The 91-count indictment filed this week said former officers of Laguna Construction Co. and four foreign nationals from Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon face charges including conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering after a four-year, international investigation involving U.S. defense contracts for wartime rebuilding projects in Iraq.

Speaker Nabih Berri has snapped back at the March 14 coalition that urged him to find a comprehensive solution to the controversial extra-budgetary spending, saying the opposition should instead approve his proposal to form a joint ministerial-parliamentary committee to resolve the dispute with the March 8 forces.

In remarks published in several newspapers on Saturday, Berri said: “I improved the conditions of the success of my proposal so that it gets implemented.”