President Michel Suleiman said Friday that the land, people and common values formed the country's “permanent equation,” stressing that the Baabda Declaration was similar to the National Pact.

“The land, people and common values form the golden and permanent equation for the nation,” Suleiman said in a speech at the “My land: a promising future” conference held at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik.

An Iranian parliamentary delegation, headed by Chairman of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Alaeddin Boroujerdi, stressed on Friday that Hizbullah's intervention in Syria is to safeguard Lebanon, calling for democratic presidential elections.

“Hizbullah's involvement (in the ongoing conflict in Syria) is to protect Lebanon's sovereignty and independence,” Boroujerdi said after talks with Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil at the Bustros Palace.

Several rockets fired from the Syrian side of the border landed on Friday on the town of Brital in the Bekaa Valley, the Lebanese army and the state-run National News Agency reported.

The military said in a terse communique that three rockets hit Brital and its surrounding areas.

The Lebanese army arrested on Friday several Syrians and seized military equipment from them during a raid in the eastern city of Baalbek, the National News Agency reported.

The state-run NNA said the raid took place at dawn in al-Shiqan neighborhood.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky has said that any action which adds to tension in the region should be avoided after Hizbullah vowed retaliation to what it said was an Israeli raid on one of its positions on the Lebanese-Syrian border.

“We don’t have independent confirmation about air strikes. We’ve seen the media reports,” Nesirky said Thursday.

President Michel Suleiman discussed with Hizbullah's state minister for parliamentary affairs Mohammed Fneish the latest developments concerning the cabinet's policy statement and the Israeli raid that targeted one of the party's posts in the Bekaa town of Janta.

Suleiman voiced hope that the ministerial panel tasked with drafting a policy statement should swiftly reach an agreement over disputed issues to prevent further delay in the parliament's confidence vote, An Nahar newspaper reported.

Investigations with detained extremists revealed that Speaker Nabih Berri was allegedly the target of an assassination bid, local newspapers reported on Friday.

According to As Safir and al-Akhbar newspapers, Lebanese national Mahmoud Abou Aalfa, who is affiliated to the Qaida-linked Abdulllah Azzam Brigades, confessed that the extremist group was plotting to assassinate Berri, who is the head of the AMAL movement.

Speaker Nabih Berri stressed on Friday that he would not give up or make compromises on the “Resistance” word in the government's policy statement.

“I will not give up or reach a settlement on any single letter of (the resistance) letters,” Berri said in remarks published in As Safir newspaper after President Michel Suleiman and the March 14 alliance's cabinet ministers backed the Baabda Declaration as the basis of the policy statement.

The Maronite Catholic Church in the United States has ordained a married Lebanese priest for the first time in nearly a century, after Pope Francis gave his permission.

A ceremony at the ornate St. Raymond's Maronite Cathedral in St. Louis ordained Deacon Wissam Akiki on Thursday night.

The March 14 forces on Thursday handed the U.N. secretary-general's representative in Lebanon a petition demanding the expansion of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon's mandate to cover all assassinations against March 14 figures.

“We handed the U.N. secretary-general's representative in Lebanon a petition signed by 69 MPs and demanding the expansion of the STL's jurisdiction to involve all assassination crimes that targeted Lebanese leaders, from the attempt on MP Marwan Hamadeh's life to the assassination of martyr minister Mohammed Shatah,” al-Mustaqbal bloc MP Atef Majdalani said after a March 14 delegation handed the petition to U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly.