Speaker Nabih Berri is seeking to avoid a crisis with Bkirki over Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi's recent criticism of MPs for the extension of their term until June 2017.

Berri is expressing “understanding” at the anger expressed by al-Rahi over the failure to elect a new president and the extension of the legislature's mandate for two years and seven months, according to local dailies published on Wednesday.

Hizbullah is reportedly boosting and reactivating the Resistance Brigades by recruiting fighters from all sects in the north and the west of the Bekaa valley and offering them training and arms to combat the Islamic State group and other organizations.

According to An Nahar newspaper published on Wednesday, several youth are directly training with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in return for a hefty salary ranging between $1,500 and $2,500.

A Kuwaiti man kidnapped in August in the eastern Bekaa valley was released on Tuesday and handed over to the authorities, a security source said.

The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc criticized on Tuesday the Change and Reform bloc and Hizbullah's ongoing boycott of presidential elections sessions, saying that such stances are “negative and unacceptable” and will only serve to prolong vacuum.

It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: “Hizbullah and the Change and Reform bloc should reconsider their positions in order to allow Lebanese political powers the opportunity to reach national settlement.”

The Free Patriotic Movement reiterated on Tuesday its condemnation of the extension of parliament's term, saying that it is a violation of democratic practices in Lebanon.

MP Ibrahim Kanaan said after the Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting: “The FPM will appeal before the constitutional council the decision to extend parliament's term.”

A citizen claimed he was assaulted on Tuesday by the bodyguards of Syrian Social National Party chief MP Assaad Hardan, reported the National News Agency.

It said that Toufiq Fahd Zeino Saqqal, 30, was beaten by the lawmaker's bodyguards in Beirut's Qoreitem area.

Syria on Tuesday released a 26-year-old woman whose mother gave birth to her in jail and who was herself arrested this month on her way back from Lebanon, a lawyer said

"Syrian authorities on Tuesday freed Maria Bahjar Shaabo without charges," human rights lawyer Anwar Bunni told Agence France Presse.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan warned on Tuesday against the consequences of the vacuum at Baabda Palace and reiterated that terrorism has no religion.

“After the extension of parliament's term, it is time to swiftly hold the presidential elections,” Daryan said following a visit to the deputy head of the Higher Shiite Islamic Council, Sheikh Abdul Amir Qabalan.

A fugitive, who had fought Lebanese troops in the town of Bhannine, handed himself over to the military while another was arrested during a raid in northern Lebanon, the army said on Tuesday.

The military said in a communique that Ahmed Nsouh gave himself up when the army was carrying out a raid to search for fugitive militants.

Wanted terrorists Shadi al-Mawlawi and Osama Mansour have been injured in the latest battles with the Lebanese army in the northern city of Tripoli and are hiding among civilians, security officials said.

The officials, who were not identified, told Ad-Diyar newspaper on Monday that al-Mawlawi and Mansour are being guarded by some gunmen in a civilian neighborhood and that any military operation to capture them would inflict dozens of casualties.