Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq warned on Monday of the dangerous situation in the northeastern border town of Arsal with the onset of winter as gunmen would have to leave their positions on the outskirts either back into Syria or would enter the village.

“If the jihadists decided to advance into Arsal at the beginning of winter new clashes would erupt with the Lebanese army,” Mashnouq said in an interview with the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat.

Education Minister Elias Bou Saab stressed on Monday that the Free Patriotic Movement is seeking to facilitate the staging of the parliamentary elections, revealing that he will run in the polls.

“We reject the extension of the legislature's term,” Bou Saab said in comments published in al-Joumhouria newspaper.

Speaker Nabih Berri has denied that he could make a magic trick to resolve the crisis on the parliamentary elections but compared the polls to the rabbit that would be pulled out of an empty hat.

“I think the parliamentary elections are the rabbit” that would come out of the magician's hat, Berri said.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun's chances to reach the presidency post still exist, al-Liwaa newspaper reported on Monday.

The daily reported that Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, Aoun's son-in-law, with his Saudi and U.S. counterparts in Jeddah last week the ongoing presidential deadlock in Lebanon.

Security forces are questioning several suspects who were arrested in the southern district of Jezzine on suspicion of plotting to free Islamist prisoners loyal to Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Monday.

The daily said that the cell was planning to attack the Jezzine prison to free the inmates who were arrested during and after clashes between gunmen loyal to al-Asir and the Lebanese army in June 2013.

A Qatari delegation is expected to arrive on Tuesday in Lebanon after a short one-day visit to Doha by a Lebanese delegation headed by Prime Minister Tammam Salam.

The delegation, according to An Nahar newspaper, is set to follow up the case of the Lebanese soldiers and policemen abducted by jihadists.

A Middle East Airlines flight from Geneva arrived in Beirut on Sunday after landing in Rome over the absence of a passenger, the airline announced.

MEA said in a statement that the aircraft was heading from the Swiss city to Rafik Hariri International Airport in the Lebanese capital when it was revealed that a passenger with a boarding pass did not take the flight.

Police said Sunday that they have arrested a Lebanese drug dealer and two of his clients in Beirut.

A communique issued by the Internal Security Forces said that F.Aa., a 32-year-old Lebanese, was arrested on the Beirut Airport road for the possession of 35 grams of cocaine and 50 grams of hashish.

United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly held talks on the situation in Lebanon with Iranian officials in Tehran during a two visit, announced his press office on Sunday.

Plumbly met with Advisor on International Affairs to the Supreme Leader Ali Akbar Velayati and Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hossein Amir-Abdollahian during the visit that spanned the weekend.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat questioned on Sunday the delay and stalling in the trials of Islamist inmates held in Roumieh Prison.

He demanded that a speedy trial be held for them, revealing that a judge had informed him that should swift measures be taken, the proceedings would take a few days to complete.