State Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr postponed on Friday taking a decision concerning Syrian top presidential adviser Bouthaina Shaaban's link to former Minister Michel Samaha's case until investigations are complete.

The National News Agency reported that Saqr asked First Examining Magistrate Riyad Abu Ghida to carry on the investigations and take the testimonies of Shaaban, Syrian security Chief Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk and a Syrian army colonel identified only by his first name Adnan.

The Syrian army deployed advanced surface-to-air missiles along the northern border district of Akkar, Ad Diyar newspaper reported on Friday.

According to the report, the missiles can shoot down advanced military warplanes.

The controversial debate over the Lebanese expatriates' right to vote in the upcoming 2013 parliamentary elections took over discussions at the joint parliamentary committees on Thursday as attendees expressed surprise concerning the numbers of expats willing to vote, local newspapers reported on Friday.

The session witnessed a heated debate among officials as some accused the Foreign Ministry of negligence and considered that it failed to prepare the proper measures to ensure that the Lebanese expats participate in casting their votes.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea held talks in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, the second such meeting in a week, reported Voice of Lebanon radio on Friday.

It said that the meeting focused on the parliamentary electoral law, saying that they shared the same view on the matter.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's admission that the party was behind the drone that was shot down by Israel on Saturday is aimed at diverting attention away from the developments along the Lebanese-Syrian border, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Friday.

A leading March 14 source told the daily: “Hizbullah is seeking to lure Israel into a war against Lebanon.”

A U.S. federal court sentenced a Lebanese man to 12 years in prison Thursday for conspiring to provide Colombia's leftist FARC rebels with military-grade weapons in exchange for over a ton of cocaine.

Jamal Youssef, 54, pleaded guilty in May to one count of providing material support to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Latin America's oldest insurgent group.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday acknowledged that his group sent a sophisticated unmanned drone over Israel last week, saying the device was built by the Jewish state's arch-foe Iran, while denying reports that Hizbullah was fighting alongside the Syrian regime.

Nasrallah's acknowledgment of the drone which Israel shot down on October 6 came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed at Hizbullah and vowed to defend his country against further "threats."

Hizbullah was behind the drone that Israel shot down last weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Binjamin Netanyahu charged on Thursday during a tour of the security fence separating southern Israel from Egypt.

During the tour, Netanyahu stated that Israel would "act with determination to defend its sea, air and land borders" just as it had "thwarted Hizbullah's attempt over the weekend" to send an unmanned aircraft into Israeli airspace.

The Army Command on Thursday announced that its troops continue to pursue migrant workers “of several nationalities” who are accused of “encroaching on the dignities of citizens,” one day after Human Rights Watch said troops acted “like a gang” during a raid on a Beirut residence inhabited by migrant workers.

In a statement it released, the Command revealed that they are still receiving complaints asking to suppress and draw and end to these incidents in various Lebanese cities.

The joint parliamentary committees formed on Thursday an electoral subcommittee to study the disputed issues concerning the electoral draft law despite sharp difference among the political foes over the matter.

The committee will be headed by deputy Speaker Farid Makari and will be represented on behalf of March 14 alliance by al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc MPs Ahmed Fatfat and Serge Tor Sarkissian, Phalange Party MP Sami Gemayel, and Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan.