Three Lebanese Shiites have been killed in fighting in Syria, a Hizbullah official said Sunday, as the Syrian opposition accused the Lebanese group of intervening on the side of the regime.

"Two Lebanese Shiites living in Syria were killed and at least 14 others wounded in clashes with rebels," the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity, later adding that one of the wounded had also died.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat advised former Prime Minister Saad Hariri to keep away from the issues of Hizbullah's weapons and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, explaining that these are only “minor details in the midst of what is happening in the Middle East”.

"The STL is only a detail amid the Middle East's current events,” Jumblat said in an interview with Al-Arabiya television, adding that the Syrian people will “give March 14 justice”.

A moderate Republican senator has said she'll oppose the confirmation of Chuck Hagel to become President Barack Obama's secretary of defense over his “unsettling” views on Hizbullah and Iran and other critical threats facing the U.S.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins had been viewed as a possible supporter of Hagel, but she said in a four-page statement on Wednesday that Hagel was unwilling to ask the European Union to designate Hizbullah a terrorist organization in 2006, and he has been hesitant to back the use of all non-military options, such as unilateral sanctions, to pressure Iran into ceasing its nuclear program.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stated on Wednesday that there is “unannounced war on Sunnis in Lebanon”, revealing that he will not take part in the March 14 commemoration of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination on Thursday.

“There is an attempt to accuse Sunnis of terrorism and of being behind all operations on the military institutions,” Geagea said in an interview with Future TV, accusing the Free Patriotic Movement of taking on the task to attack Sunnis in the “war against the Shiites”.

Free Patriotic Movement MP Michel Aoun renewed on Tuesday his rejection of a parliamentary electoral law that does not guarantee the election of 64 Christian MPs, while warning against handing over telecommunication data to security agencies.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting: “We have the right to take our case to the constitutional council if our demand for a law that ensures the election of 64 Christian lawmakers is not met.”

Syrian rebels launched fierce assaults on regime troops in several parts of the country Sunday, including near Deir Ezzor where they used tanks to shell an army brigade, a watchdog and activists said.

The rebels used tanks to shell Brigade 113 just north of the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, which they have surrounded for weeks, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Greek Orthodox leader Youhanna X Yazigi was on Sunday enthroned in Damascus during a ceremony that was attended by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and the Syrian deputy foreign minister.

The ceremony took place at the Church of the Holy Cross in Qassaa, a central neighborhood of the conflict-hit Syrian capital.

The March 14 opposition alliance plans to commemorate the 8th anniversary of the assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri at the Beirut International Exhibition and Leisure Center BIEL on Feb 14 in a massive rally, media reports said.

Prominent political figures and MPs representing all parties of the alliance including cadres of al-Mustaqbal movement would participate in the event, reports quoted the secretary-general of the movement, Ahmad Hariri, as saying.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told relatives of victims of last year's attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria that those responsible for the killings "will pay the price."

Netanyahu's office said Wednesday in a statement that the head of Israel's counterterrorism bureau told the victims' families in his name that "Israel will do everything so that those responsible for the crime will pay the price."

The European Union now faces the difficult task of dealing with demands to designate Hizbullah as a terrorist organization after Bulgaria announced Tuesday that the Lebanese party was behind a bomb attack in July that killed five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement that the EU should “respond robustly to an attack on European soil.”