Security forces seized cocaine from a vehicle whose three occupants escaped following a police chase in the Sabtiyeh-Jdeideh area, north of Beirut, the National News Agency reported Saturday.

NNA said the black BMW X5’s driver, Hassan Zoaiter, and another man and a woman ran to an unknown location after they hit four vehicles during a chase by a patrol from the Internal Security Forces anti-drug unit.

Twelve people were injured in gunbattles between rival neighborhoods in the northern city of Tripoli as sniper fire prevented motorists from using the Tripoli-Akkar highway, the National News Agency reported Saturday.

NNA said the clashes that erupted between mainly Alawite Jabal Mohsen and the majority Sunni area of al-Bakkar around midnight Friday spread to the al-Rifa, al-Mankoubeen, al-Shaarani, al-Hara al-Barraniyeh, Souq al-Qamh and Syria street in Bab al-Tabbaneh.

The southern port city of Sidon is bracing for a general strike on Monday to protest Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir’s sit-in that has crippled the city economically and threatened security deterioration.

Sidon’s political, economic and religious officials will meet on Sunday to make an official announcement of the strike against Asir’s sit-in and his closure of the city’s northern entrance.

A protest tent erected by Electricite du Liban’s contract workers in the company’s courtyard in Mar Mikhael was moved to the building’s reception hall on Saturday as a first step in their stepped up efforts to confront EDL’s decision to start collecting electricity bills under police protection.

The workers burned tires and garbage bins near the firm’s headquarters on Friday after an EDL official backed by security forces was able to transfer the bills outside the headquarters.

President Michel Suleiman will resume his efforts on Monday to bring back all the members of the all-party talks to the national dialogue table as the only solution to Lebanon’s lingering problems, his sources said.

The sources told An Nahar daily published Saturday that he will make new contacts on Monday will the parties from across the political spectrum as part of his efforts to convince the March 14 opposition into ending its boycott of the dialogue.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati vowed on Saturday not to become a stumbling block to the formation of an “exceptional” government that requires foremost consensus among the Lebanese.

In an interview with pan-Arab daily al-Hayat in London, Miqati said: “I hold onto the success of the government at all levels despite all the hurdles and obstacles facing us … At the same time everyone knows that I don’t hold onto power but work to preserve the safety of Lebanon and the Lebanese.”

Clashes with light and medium caliber weapons erupted in Tripoli on Friday after two young men were beaten and stabbed while on their way to their place of residence in the mainly Alawite Jabal Mohsen district, a security source told Agence France Presse.

“Two young men were on their way to the Jabal Mohsen area minutes before iftar when they were intercepted in the area that separates Jabal Mohsen and al-Qobbeh by unknown attackers who assaulted and stabbed them,” the source said, adding that the two wounded young men were rushed to a hospital in the area.

The European Union on Friday announced “additional €5 million to support the needs of Syrian refugees and their Lebanese host communities.”

“With the influx of Syrian refugees into Lebanon some of the most deprived communities in the country are suffering from an additional strain on their already limited resources. The European Union is committed to ensure that these host communities in particular, are able to mitigate the impact of this unprecedented influx in the medium to long term,” the Delegation of the European Union in Lebanon said in a statement.

The Red Cross said Friday it will pull some members of its humanitarian team out of conflict-ravaged Syria in the next few days.

"Some of the International Committee of the Red Cross team will move to Beirut in the next two days," said ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan, adding that 50 international and local staff would remain in Damascus.

The army took strict security measures on Friday in the Akkar region in general and al-Qubayyat in particular in a bid to reassure the residents after threatening leaflets were found inside a church in the northern town, state-run National News Agency reported.

The army is “conducting investigations in the area with the aim of identifying those behind the leaflets,” said NNA.