An army sergeant was seriously wounded on Sunday when he came under gunfire in the northern city of Tripoli, state-run National News Agency reported.

Hizbullah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem has stressed that his party's ties with its two allies the AMAL Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement are “firm” and “strategic.”

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday reiterated his rejection of imposing any “preconditions” on any presidential candidate or the president-elect, as he urged the parliamentary blocs to “clearly announce” their stances on the nominations.

The Muslim Scholar Committee, a grouping of Sunni Muslim clerics, staged a sit-in Sunday outside the Military Court in Beirut in protest at the rearrest of Sheikh Bassam Tarras.

Betting on a Hizbullah mediation between its two allies Speaker Nabih Berri and Free Patriotic Movement founder MP Michel Aoun does not seem to be based on firm facts, a media report said on Sunday.

Abu Bakr al-Raqqawi, an official of the extremist Islamic State group, was found killed on Sunday in the restive northeastern border town of Arsal.

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea warned that the failure of al-Mustaqbal Movement chief ex-PM Saad Hariri's initiative to bring MP Michel Aoun to the post of the presidency, will open Lebanon to “horrifying” risks, as he stressed that Hariri is very serious with regard to Aoun's nomination, the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat daily reported on Saturday.

“Hariri is serious with regard to his initiative, but he only needs time to build an understanding with Aoun and to convince his supporters to elect him after the shifting political relations between the two parties,” Geagea told the daily in an interview.

As soon as he returned from a trip to Moscow and Riyadh, al-Mustaqbal Movement chief ex-PM Saad Hariri tasked one of his representatives to hold contacts with MP Michel Aoun to brief him on Saudi Arabia's “initial” positive position with regard to his nomination for the presidency, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Saturday.

Although the Saudi stance is still indecisive, but the news was assessed as positive in Rabieh, the daily added.

Mustaqbal MP Ammar Hour denied media reports on Saturday, alleging that a “concealed agreement” has been reached between chief of the party ex-PM Saad Hariri, and MP Michel Aoun that might see the latter become president of the republic, media reports said.

“News circulating in some media outlets about a secret agreement between Hariri and Aoun are totally untrue,” said Houri.

The Vatican held the Lebanese of “different religions and political affiliations” responsible for the delay in electing a new head of state, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Saturday.

The Prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri who arrived in Beirut on Friday, held a meeting with Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in Bkirki.