A request by Free Patriotic Movement cabinet ministers to task the army with controlling the security in the North and put the Internal Security Forces under its command was rejected by ministers loyal to Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat, media reports said Thursday.

Several Beirut dailies quoted sources as saying that the FPM ministers called during the session held at Baabda palace for the implementation of article four of the defense law similar to the measures taken in the eastern Bekaa valley to strike with an iron fist any attempt to tamper with the security of the northern province of Akkar.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat said on Thursday that Lebanese officials should resume the national dialogue and tackle all the lingering crises in Lebanon without any “exception.”

He told An Nahar newspaper that Saudi King Abdullah’s letter to President Michel Suleiman expresses his fear over the repercussions of the Syrian developments on Lebanon as the crisis in the neighboring country might spill over into Lebanon.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly expressed on Wednesday the United States’ appreciation for the efforts of the Internal Security Forces and Lebanese army to work together to maintain calm in Lebanon.

She emphasized after holding talks with ISF chief General Ashraf Rifi her country’s “concern for the current security situation in Lebanon and called on all parties to exercise restraint and respect for Lebanon’s security and stability.”

A dispute broke out on Wednesday between Phalange Party and Hizbullah students at Saint Joseph University in Beirut’s Monot district.

The dispute, whose causes remain unknown, soon developed into a fistfight.

A bomb scare was reported at the Beirut international airport on Wednesday after a traveler left his luggage in the facility.

Airport security inspected the luggage, which was left at a ticketing window, and found that it only contained personal belongings.

A roadside bomb exploded near a bus carrying Lebanese Shiite pilgrims in a Sunni area of western Iraq on Wednesday, killing three and wounding 10 others, Iraqi police and medical sources said.

"A roadside bomb exploded in the Khamsat Kilo area as a bus carrying Lebanese pilgrims... passed on the highway, killing three of them and wounding 10," a first lieutenant in the Anbar provincial police said, referring to an area west of the provincial capital Ramadi.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun noted on Wednesday that a large number of Lebanese have steered away from the path of resistance and forgotten about the Israeli threat against Lebanon.

He said: “Some sides are seeking to spread the unrest in Syria to Lebanon in order for us to surrender” to foreign powers.

President Michel Suleiman on Wednesday said that a letter sent to United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon by Syria’s envoy to the U.N. Bashar al-Jaafari was not based on “verified facts.”

“It is not based on verified facts, and moreover the information of the Army Command and the Lebanese security agencies say totally otherwise,” Suleiman told U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly during a meeting at the Baabda Palace.

The head of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) Riad al-Asaad condemned on Wednesday the kidnapping of Lebanese pilgrims in Aleppo on Tuesday, revealing that an investigation committee was formed in order to tackle the case, reported the Kuwaiti al-Rai newspaper in an interview to be published Thursday.

He told the newspaper: “Mafias kidnapped the pilgrims and we will risk our life to liberate them.”

Army chief Gen. Jean Qahwaji called on the military on Wednesday to be keen on the lives of the Lebanese by carrying out its mission responsibly following unrest in Northern Lebanon and Beirut.

The latest incidents in the North “proved once again that everyone relies on your role to prevent sedition and impose stability,” Qahwaji said in the Order of the Day on the occasion of Liberation Day, which falls on Friday.