Special Tribunal for Lebanon Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen issued on Thursday an order setting March 25, 2013 as a tentative date for trial to start in the Ayyash et al case, announced the tribunal in a statement.

“The order provides the parties and the victims' legal representatives with a concrete starting date allowing them to continue preparing for trial,” explained the statement.

Bulgarian investigators worked with the FBI and Interpol Thursday to identify the suicide attacker behind a deadly bombing on a bus carrying Israeli tourists, as Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack "was perpetrated by Hizbullah" and Iran denied involvement.

The attack "was perpetrated by Hizbullah, Iran's leading terrorist proxy," said Netanyahu, describing the Lebanese group as "the long arm of Iran."

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday stressed that Syria is a “real military supporter of the Resistance,” extending condolences over the death of three top Syrian officials in a blast that rocked the headquarters of National Security in Damascus.

The bombing killed Defense Minister General Daoud Rajha, Assad's brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and General Hassan Turkmani, head of the regime's crisis cell on the uprising, state media said.

The Appeals Chamber of the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon issued Wednesday a decision rejecting the request of the Defense to reconsider its ruling of February 16, 2011, “which defined terrorism for the first time in international law,” the STL said in a statement.

The Defense argued that the content of the decision should be revisited. They also challenged the procedure followed to issue that decision.

One person was killed in Tripoli on Wednesday by gunshots fired in celebration of the Syria bombing.

Khaled Fares was killed at the Malloula roundabout by a stray bullet shot during the Tripoli celebrations over the news of the Damascus explosion that targeted a number of Syrian security officials, reported MTV.

A suicide bomber on Wednesday struck at the heart of Syria's security apparatus, killing the country's defense minister and President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law, state television said.

The attack, which for the first time in a 16-month anti-regime uprising targeted members of Assad's inner core, came hours ahead of a U.N. Security Council debate on Syrian sanctions, when a showdown between Western powers and Russia and China is expected.

Al-Jazeera television aired Tuesday a video it received from the abductors of 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims who were kidnapped in Syria in May, in which the kidnappers announced they will release two of the captives.

“In response to the appeal of the Muslim Scholars Committee in Lebanon, we will hand over two of the guests in our custody to their families under the supervision of the Muslim Scholars Committee in Lebanon and the state of Qatar,” the abductors said in what they dubbed “Statement Number 3.”

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun defended on Tuesday the Lebanese army, warning of attempts to create division among its ranks.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “Some sides are seeking to create division in the army to break it up into militias.”

The Phalange Party on Monday warned of “the insistence of the Syrian regime and its tools to expand the circle of violating the Lebanese sovereignty,” urging the government to “be firm in protecting the citizens and sparing Lebanon the repercussions of the Syrian crisis.”

In a statement issued after its weekly meeting, the party’s political bureau slammed the recent deadly Syrian shelling on the northern border areas, urging the government to “be firm in protecting the citizens and sparing Lebanon the repercussions of the Syrian crisis, and to provide full political cover for the plan to deploy the army on the northern and eastern borders.”

French Ambassador to Lebanon Patrice Paoli hailed on Saturday the Lebanese democracy and coexistence, which became a model in the region.

“Lebanon’s democracy, freedom and coexistence among its citizens became a model in the region, in addition to the stability it witnessed during the recent months,” Paoli said in a ceremony held in Kasr al-Sanawbar on the occasion of French Bastille Day.