An unknown assailant tossed a percussion grenade near the home of Mohammed Asmahan in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh overnight, causing material damage only, the National News Agency reported Wednesday.

NNA said Asmahan is Palestinian and his house abuts the area known as the region of villas.

National Struggle Front parliamentary bloc wondered if the cabinet will commit to its ministerial statement concerning the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, stressing that the government has to safeguard the country and avoid any negative repercussions amid the developments in the region.

Sources told the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Wednesday that ministers loyal to National Struggle Front leader MP Walid Jumblat stress that the cabinet is obliged to fund the tribunal; especially that President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Najib Miqati continuously voiced their commitment to the STL.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati insists on funding the Special Tribunal for Lebanon as an obligation towards the international community that should be met, the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported on Wednesday.

“The PM’s decision will be proposed to the cabinet at the right time, but the administrative mechanism began through the directions given to Justice Minister (Shakib Qortbawi) and Finance Minister (Mohammed al-Safadi),” Miqati’s sources told the daily.

Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi hoped that the government would find a “political” and “legal” solution to the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

In remarks to pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, Qortbawi said: “I have an opinion on this matter. I will express it without hesitation when it is discussed by the cabinet.”

Premier Najib Miqati promised President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Judge Sir David Baragwanath, on Wednesday to resolve the crisis on the funding of the STL.

Miqati met with Baragwanath at the Grand Serail, reiterating Lebanon’s respect for international resolutions, including 1757. He hoped that the STL would steer clear of politics, a statement issued by the prime minister’s office said.

A huge explosion went off in an alleged arms depot in the Hizbullah stronghold of Siddiqin in the South overnight and party members prevented the security forces from reaching the area, media reports said Wednesday.

The reports said the cause of the blast could not be determined after Hizbullah drew a tight security dragnet around the scene of the explosion.

The U.S. handed over all of the remaining detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq Tuesday, except for a Hizbullah commander linked to the death of four American troops, Iraqi and American officials said.

The prisoner transfer marks another step toward the American military's withdrawal from Iraq, as it plans for all U.S. troops to be out of the country by the end of this year.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday announced that he would not “defend” Premier Najib Miqati’s government if the rival Mustaqbal Movement sought to topple it in the near future.

Asked about the views he shares with Miqati during an interview on his movement’s mouthpiece OTV, Aoun said: “We agree with PM Miqati that Lebanon’s security is interlinked with that of Syria. We will see if the Mustaqbal Movement will call for toppling the government, but we will not defend it.”

The United States said Tuesday it has placed a suspected Saudi member of an Islamist militant group based in Lebanon on its list of international terrorists.

The State Department said it had designated Ibrahim Suleiman Hamad al-Hablain, known as Abu Jabal, a "specially designated global terrorist," a classification that bars Americans from doing business with him or on his behalf.

Lebanese woman Myriam al-Ashqar, 28, was found dead and soaked in blood Tuesday in a forestland located between the Keserwan towns of Sahel Alma and Harisa, LBC television reported.

It later appeared that she was killed by the janitor of the Our Lady of the Annunciation monastery in Baqloush, where she went to pray on Monday and where she used to pray several times every other week, LBC said.