President Michel Suleiman on Sunday announced that Saudi Arabia has decided to donate three billion dollars with the aim of purchasing French weapons for the Lebanese army as soon as possible.

After canceling a much-anticipated press conference previously scheduled for Sunday evening, Suleiman appeared in a televised address to declare that he managed through his talks with Saudi King Abdullah to secure “extraordinary support” for the army.

Slain former Finance Minister Mohammed Shatah and his bodyguard Tareq Bader were laid to rest on Sunday after a political and popular funeral in downtown Beirut.

The victims were buried at the mausoleum of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut.

Two missiles fired from southern Lebanon exploded Sunday in northern Israel, prompting the Israeli military to hit back with three artillery shells, an army spokesman said.

"The Israeli artillery responded to rocket attacks from Lebanon against Israel that left no victims, targeting the area where these projectiles were fired from," an army spokesman told AFP.

Internal Security Forces in the Bekaa region of Baalbek released overnight two Omani nationals who were kidnapped on Thursday, reported the National News Agency on Sunday.

It said that the security forces released overnight on Sunday the Omanis who were abducted in the city.

The United States on Friday deplored the assassination of former minister Mohammed Shatah as an “abhorrent terrorist attack,” urging the Lebanese to respect the Taif and Baabda agreements and reiterating its support for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

“On behalf of President (Barack) Obama and the United States, I condemn in the strongest possible terms today's abhorrent terrorist attack and assassination of former Lebanese Cabinet Minister Mohammed Shatah in Beirut,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar on Friday "strongly" condemned the car bomb blast in Beirut that killed six people, including former finance minister Mohammed Shatah.

Saudi Arabia "has followed with great concern and disturbance the outrageous terrorist bombing" that rocked the Lebanese capital, said a statement on the official SPA news agency.

Damascus on Friday rejected accusations by the March 14 camp that the Syrian regime and its allies were involved in the assassination of former minister Mohammed Shatah, describing the allegations as a “stupid and futile” attempt to cover up for “financing terrorism in Lebanon and the region.”

“Some figures in Lebanon always resort to the approach of launching accusations whenever a painful assassination happens in brotherly Lebanon,” Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi said in a statement.

Gunmen kidnapped a Lebanese factory owner in Nigeria's second city of Kano on Monday in an attack that left two employees wounded by gunfire, police and witnesses said.

"I can confirm the kidnap of a Lebanese national by unknown gunmen from his factory in Sharada area this morning," Kano state police spokesman Magaji Majia told Agence France Presse.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah criticized on Friday the March 14 camp's accusations against some Shiites in Lebanon of seeking to eliminate other powers in Lebanon.

He warned: “Such a proclamation is a declaration of war.”

An international human rights organization has urged Lebanon to rein in sectarian tensions that have been on the rise amid a spillover of Syria's civil war.

Human Rights Watch said Friday that authorities should better protect minority Alawites — members of an offshoot Shiite sect — who are increasingly coming under attack by Sunnis in the northern city of Tripoli.