President Michel Suleiman revealed on Thursday evening that he asked security forces and the army to deploy the necessary units to control the security situation in the northern city of Tripoli.

Suleiman's request came as Tripoli has been witnessing intense clashes between the city's rival neighborhoods of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh.

Salafist cleric Sheikh Salem al-Rafehi on Thursday slammed the state for failing to stop the violence in Tripoli, accusing Jabal Mohsen's Arab Democratic Party of starting the new round of fighting in the city.

“Tripoli is being shelled since four days at the hands of a criminal party despite the presence of the security plan,” Rafehi said following a meeting for clerics and leaders of Bab al-Tabbaneh's fighting frontiers.

Caretaker State Minister for Administrative Development Mohammed Fneish, a Hizbullah member, on Thursday hit back at former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal, describing his remarks as “very dangerous.”

“This speech is very dangerous and it cannot go unnoticed and it is a threat against Hizbullah and Lebanon,” said Fneish when asked by the Central News Agency about al-Faisal's remarks.

Two Syrians were killed and two Lebanese army soldiers were wounded in a clash Thursday after the army intercepted a car carrying explosives and gunmen in the Western Bekaa area of Hawsh al-Harimeh.

“After the Intelligence Directorate obtained intel that four people were transporting explosives, a patrol from the directorate chased the aforementioned car in Hawsh al-Harimeh and an exchange of gunfire ensued,” said an army statement.

Syria has freed 64 women prisoners this week, or half the number expected to be released under a weekend hostage deal, a human rights activist said Thursday.

Nine Lebanese pilgrim hostages held for 17 months by a rebel group in northern Syria were exchanged on Saturday for two Turkish pilots abducted in Lebanon in August.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati condemned on Thursday the renewal of clashes between the rival Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen neighborhoods in the northern city of Tripoli, saying that its residents feel like pawns in regional schemes.

He said after holding a security meeting with President Michel Suleiman on the latest developments in the city: “There is no other option for Tripoli but resorting to the state.”

Two people were killed on Thursday and 21 others were injured, including a soldier, in renewed fighting and sniper activity in the northern city of Tripoli, the state-run National News Agency reported.

The fighting had reportedly escalated following the death of Arab Democratic Party top military official Bassam Abdullah in Jabal Mohsen.

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun has advocated the election of a president away from foreign intervention and advised Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam to launch a new round of consultations with parliamentary blocs.

“There should always be a first time. Currently there are a lot of crises and no one's thinking about us. So we should elect the president internally,” Aoun told al-Akhbar daily in an interview published on Thursday.

Lebanese officials are mulling the country's participation in a peace conference over Syria in accordance with the dissociation policy that the country has adopted since the conflict in the neighboring country erupted in March 2011.

Diplomatic sources told An Nahar newspaper published on Thursday that Lebanese officials will inform U.N.-Arab League special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, who is expected to arrive in Beirut on Saturday, that it will not join Geneva ll conference.

Syria expressed resentment over Lebanon's exploitation of the case of the two kidnapped bishops, who are Syrians, An Nahar newspaper reported on Thursday.

According to the newspaper, Syria stressed that the case of the Bishops Youhanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazigi, who were kidnapped by armed men in Syria in April, is “a national Syrian matter,” which Lebanon is interfering in.