The Lebanese army carried out raids early Thursday in the neighborhood of Sharawneh in the eastern city of Baalbek in search for outlaws.

The state-run National News Agency said the military clashed with gunmen during the raids.

The Free Patriotic Movement and Hizbullah boycotted on Thursday a cabinet session after officials failed to strike a deal to meet the request of the FPM on the appointment of top officers.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil told Prime Minister Tammam Salam that his party's two ministers will boycott the session and that Hizbullah's representatives in the cabinet will also not attend the meeting in solidarity with their allies.

Lebanon's foreign ministry announced Wednesday evening that the kidnap of two Lebanese men in Libya is not related to Hannibal Gadhafi's arrest in Lebanon but rather to a “financial dispute.”

“Lebanese citizens Mohammed Mustafa Nazha and Khaled Mustafa Nazha were abducted in Benghazi around a month ago over a financial dispute between them and their partners in the carpentry business,” the ministry quoted Lebanon's ambassador to Libya Mohammed Skaineh as saying.

General Security has arrested a Syrian who admitted to participating in the fighting between extremists and the Lebanese army in the northeastern border town of Arsal.

The general-directorate of General Security said A.A. was arrested for having ties with terrorist groups.

After taking in more than a million Syrian refugees, Lebanon has quietly changed course in recent months, forcing refugees to return to Syria — where they are at risk of persecution or death — or stay illegally, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, human rights groups say.

The situation is drawing attention at a time when Turkey and Jordan have also tightened their admission policies. A Human Rights Watch report published Tuesday warned that Lebanon's new regulations have "set the stage for a potentially explosive situation."

Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb declared on Wednesday that the export of Lebanon's trash is not the only solution to the country's months-long problem, but said that it is the most feasible one at the moment.

He said after a meeting of parliament's environment committee: “Politicians should concern themselves with politics and keep their disputes away from this file.”

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea denied that the LF was maneuvering on its possible backing for Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun for the presidency.

“We are not maneuvering on our choice to back Aoun as a candidate,” al-Joumhouria daily on Wednesday quoted Geagea as saying. “We have many reasons for taking such a decision.”

Prime Minister Tammam Salam urged Lebanon’s bickering leaders to resolve their problems outside the cabinet after the Free Patriotic Movement insisted to resolve the crisis on the appointments of top security and military officials as a condition for attending a government session.

Salam has told officials who have lately contacted him that he does not reject the FPM's demands on the appointments. But he stressed that ministers “should head to the cabinet and resolve their political and sectarian problems outside the council of ministers.”

France and Britain have hinted that they would stop their carriers from landing in Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport for failing to abide by international standards.

The issue has been lately discussed by Speaker Nabih Berri and the French Ambassador. A similar meeting was also held between Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq and the British Ambassador, said As Safir daily on Wednesday.

Donors have pledged $250 million to educate over one million Syrian children this year but an additional $500 million is urgently needed to fund the program in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, the U.N. envoy for global education said Tuesday.

Gordon Brown warned that "death voyages to Europe" will soar in 2016 as long as Syria's two million refugee children and millions more displaced inside the country are exploited and don't have the opportunity for education.