Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea praised on Sunday the security agencies for their arrest of Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir, deeming it a “major achievement.”

He wondered however: “How is it that Asir was arrested, despite his full disguise and fake passport, while the same agencies have failed to arrest the killers of Hashem al-Salman and Sobhi and Nadimeh Fakhri even though they never wore a disguise?”

General Prosecutor Judge Samir Hammoud revealed that detained Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir will be subject to a DNA test to confirm that it really is him after he had undergone a number of plastic surgery operations to alter his appearance, reported the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat on Sunday.

He told the daily: “I asked the state commissioner to the military court to perform the test.”

The relatives of the servicemen abducted by the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front extremist groups voiced their concern that the arrest of Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir will “negatively affect” negotiations on the captives' release, reported the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Sunday.

Hussein Youssef, father of hostage Mohammed Youssef, told the daily: “The state's announcement of Asir's arrest will negatively affect negotiations if there even are negotiations.”

A Syrian rebel group said Saturday that a rare ceasefire negotiated with Hizbullah fighters in a Syrian town and two villages was over as shelling resumed.

The 72-hour ceasefire in the northern rebel-held town of Zabadani, near the border with Lebanon, as well as in Foua and Kafraya, two Shiite villages in Idlib province, was reached earlier this week and was to last until Sunday.

Lebanese authorities on Saturday arrested a fugitive Islamic cleric wanted for his role in deadly clashes with the army as he tried to flee the country.

Ahmed al-Asir was apprehended at Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport while trying to travel to Nigeria via Cairo with a fake Palestinian passport, General Security announced.

The lunch that brought together Army Chief General Jean Qahwaji and the Commando Regiment chief Brig. Gen. Chamel Roukoz was not a private event and did not have any political connotations, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Saturday.

“The lunch between Qahwaji and Roukoz was a public event that took place in the presence of a number of army officers. It was not a solo lunch nor did it have any political connotations,” prominent sources told the daily on condition of anonymity.

The relatives of four servicemen taken captive by Islamist groups from the northeastern border town of Arsal in 2014 failed on Saturday to meet their loved ones.

“The four families of the kidnapped soldiers were not able to enter the outskirts of Arsal to visit their sons,” the state-run National News Agency said.

The speeches of Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah followed by the speech of his ally Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun “could herald a momentum towards a solution to the paralysis governing the country,” well informed sources told the daily As Safir on Saturday.

“The speech of Hizbullah leader that was followed by Aoun's TV appearance on al-Manar can form an impetus towards a solution rather than a new problem,” said the sources on condition of anonymity.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Friday warned his rivals against what he described as further “provocation,” stressing that the country's next president must be representative of the Christian community.

“Our protests are peaceful but if they continue to provoke us, our behavior might change,” said Aoun in an interview on al-Manar television.

Defected Colonel Abdullah Hussein al-Rifai, the so-called leader of the Free Syrian Army in Arsal and its outskirts, was shot dead Friday in the Lebanese border town.

State-run National News Agency said the shooting occurred in the town's square.