The Syrian army on Sunday opened fire on three Lebanese nationals on the outskirts of the Rashaya town of Kfarqouq on the Lebanese-Syrian border, killing a man and wounding and arresting another, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.

Citing reports, NNA said the three were trying to smuggle cigarette packets into Syria when they fell into an “advanced ambush” by the Syrian forces on the international border in an area northeast of Kfarqouq.

An Iraqi plane landed Sunday at the Beirut Rafik Hariri International Airport carrying Lebanese Shiite pilgrims who had survived a roadside bombing against their bus in Iraq.

The survivors include nine who were wounded in the attack, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

A man called Charbel Rahme, who hails from the northern town of Bcharri, was killed on Sunday by troops’ gunfire when his vehicle failed to stop at an army checkpoint at al-Madfoun Bridge in the North, state-run National News Agency reported.

Rahme, 38, died immediately as a gunshot struck his head, NNA said.

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly stressed on Sunday the importance of having the issue of “illegal arms” on the agenda of the National Dialogue that President Michel Suleiman has called for.

In an interview with Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5), Plumbly said the illegal weapons create alarm.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi expressed hope on Sunday that a National Dialogue that President Michel Suleiman had called for would succeed.

Al-Rahi also hoped in his sermon that the all-party talks would lead to the adoption of a new national pact that would create a “Lebanese Spring.”

Several parts of a residential building collapsed in the town of Sarba north of Beirut overnight, injuring one person, media reports said Sunday.

Two floors of the building, which lies on the main road, were damaged in the collapse, they said.

An audio recording for 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims abducted in Syria will be released soon, the International Human Rights Organization and a Syrian mediator said, as outgoing Syrian opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun announced receiving information claiming that the abductees might comprise non-civilian individuals.

Rebel Brig. Gen. Hussameddine al-Awwak, who described himself as a mediator, told LBC that the abductees comprise five Hizbullah commanders, including a man called Hussein Hammoud, noting that their bus was intercepted by the kidnappers for making several stops near Free Syrian Army bases and because the passengers had “suspicious surveillance binoculars.”

March 14 opposition MP Butros Harb hoped on Sunday that Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat would stop his support for the government to force its collapse.

“Maybe under a certain circumstance, Walid Jumblat and his bloc would change their stance and we could file a vote of no confidence,” Harb said in response to a question as to how the opposition would seek a change of government.

A year after the kidnapping of Syrian opposition member Shebli al-Aisamy in the Lebanese town of Aley, his family began losing hope of seeing him alive.

“We are convinced that the operation was carried out through the Syrian embassy in Beirut with the assistance of Lebanese sides,” his daughter, Raja Sharafeddine, told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat published Sunday.

The 11 Lebanese pilgrims abducted in Aleppo are in a good condition and will be released by tomorrow night, spokesman of the Syrian al-Ahrar party Naser Doqmaq revealed on Saturday.

“The abducted Lebanese are in a good condition but the latest developments in Syria postponed their release,” Doqmaq said in statement.