The Change and Reform bloc defended on Tuesday Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi’s request to lift immunity off MP Moeen al-Merehbi, saying that he had acted according to the law.

MP Alain Aoun said after the bloc’s weekly meeting: “The campaign against the minister is politically-motivated and it should stop.”

A car bomb killed 12 people at a funeral in the mainly Druze and Christian suburb of Jaramana on the southeastern outskirts of the Syrian capital on Tuesday, state television reported.

"Another 48 people were wounded, many critically, in a terrorist car blast that targeted a funeral procession in Jaramana," it said.

Saudi authorities announced on Sunday they had foiled a "terror" plot by elements suspected of links to al-Qaida, mostly Yemenis, and busted two extremist cells in Riyadh and Jeddah.

The interior ministry said in a statement the suspects were "in contact with the deviant organization abroad," a term usually used to refer to the al-Qaida jihadist network.

The U.S. Embassy in Beirut on Friday said it was “very concerned by the continuing violence in Tripoli,” adding that “Assad regime officials should be held accountable for involvement in alleged attempts to destabilize Lebanon.”

The embassy expressed its “sincere condolences for the loss of life,” calling on all parties to “exercise restraint and respect for Lebanese security and stability.”

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun voiced on Friday his objection to the series of kidnappings that have taken place in Lebanon, saying that the causes of the incidents need to be addressed.

He said of the security unrest: “The instability will not spread to other areas because our political camp is containing it.”

State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr issued on Friday arrest warrants against gunmen involved in the clashes in the northern city of Tripoli.

He ordered the military police, army intelligence, and Internal Security Forces to identify and arrest those involved in the Tripoli unrest.

A meeting held Thursday at Prime Minister Najib Miqati’s residence in Tripoli urged the army to restore security in the areas of the clashes “by all means necessary,” stressing that “the jeopardizing of civil peace in Tripoli and entire Lebanon will not be tolerated.”

The conferees “discussed the means to find a radical solution to this dilemma that has become a threat to civil peace in Tripoli and across Lebanon,” said a statement released by Miqati’s office.

Taking advantage of a tenuous ceasefire, residents of Tripoli’s Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen returned to their neighborhoods Thursday to inspect the damage, after four days of sectarian fighting killed 10 people.

Earlier in the day renewed fighting killed one person and wounded two others, a security source had said.

The Islamic National Gathering agreed on Wednesday to a ceasefire in the clashes of the northern city of Tripoli that came into effect as of 5:30 p.m., but the fragile truce was shaken by intermittent gunfire that left two people dead and more than 10 wounded.

The initiative was supported by Prime Minister Najib Miqati and granted the army the right to respond to the sources of gunfire.

Al-Jadeed TV denied on Tuesday that its reporter Youmna Fawwaz was kidnapped in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo while covering the severe fighting between government troops and armed rebels.

Fawwaz headed from Syria towards the Turkish territories on Monday night, al-Jadeed said. “She contacted us at 7:00 am from Turkish territories where she is being interrogated by security authorities on how she entered Syria.”