A leaked U.S. Embassy cable published exclusively in Al-Akhbar on Thursday reported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as saying that Syria would enter a war with Israel should it invade Lebanon.

Assad informed his biographer American journalist David Lesch that the image of the invincible Israeli army was destroyed during the July 2006 war, said the WikiLeaks cable dated July 25, 2006.

Arab states in the Gulf plan to deport thousands of Lebanese Shiites over their alleged links to Hizbullah and Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard force, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported on Thursday.

Al-Seyassah, quoting London-based Arab diplomatic sources, said the measure was being considered because of intelligence reports that Lebanese Shiite activists had been involved in protests in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Caretaker Defense Minister Elias Murr said in a WikiLeaks cable published by al-Akhbar daily on Thursday that Speaker Nabih Berri was eagerly waiting to break his political alliance with Hizbullah.

Berri “is praying to liberate himself politically from Hizbullah,” the cable quoted Murr as saying during a meeting with a U.S. diplomat on August 10, 2006.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat reportedly said immediately after the end of the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah that if the Jewish state pulled out from occupied Lebanese territories, it would abolish an essential pressure point off the Shiite group.

Israel “is speeding up the withdrawal,” Jumblat said during a meeting dated August 15, 2006, according to a WikiLeaks cable published by al-Akhbar newspaper on Thursday.

Caretaker Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar said on Thursday that threats about the prosecution of some March 14 officials over WikiLeaks cables had political rather than legal dimensions.

“No one is taking the minutes (of the alleged meetings), there are no accurate dates, the content isn’t precise, and the translation” isn’t checked, Najjar told al-Mustaqbal newspaper in remarks published Thursday.

The latest visits of Lebanese officials to Damascus to discuss the draft government lineup with the Assad regime will most likely help in the formation of the cabinet soon.

Syrian President Bashar Assad held talks with Marada Movement leader Suleiman Franjieh on Wednesday. The Syrian leader also met with Premier-designate Najib Miqati’s brother Taha on Monday.

The kidnapping of seven Estonians brought back fears about the resumption of abductions that were common during the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war amid reports that the men could have been snatched to be used as a bargaining chip for a Palestinian recently arrested in Ukraine.

The Estonian tourists cycling in the eastern Bekaa Valley were kidnapped on Wednesday by armed men.

Hundreds of Palestinian refugees seeking better medical services on Wednesday forced the shutdown of two U.N. offices in southern Lebanon and staged a sit-in to press their demands.

About 500 refugees converged on the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees) office in the coastal town of Tyre and asked employees to leave the premises before erecting a tent outside the building and holding a sit-in, an Agence France Presse correspondent witnessed.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad held talks Wednesday in Damascus with Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh, Syria's state-run news agency SANA reported.

Talks tackled "the efforts being exerted to form a new Lebanese cabinet and the situations in the Arab region," according to SANA.

Seven Estonian tourists biking in the eastern Bekaa Valley were kidnapped on Wednesday by armed men who bundled them into two vans and drove off, a security official told Agence France Presse.

He said the Estonians had crossed into Lebanon earlier from Syria and were intercepted at about 5:30 pm (1530 GMT) by two white vans and a dark Mercedes 300 with no license plates in the industrial part of Zahle.