Security forces are intensifying their efforts to curb drug abuse and smuggling in southern Lebanon amid reports that the smugglers are using water pipes to hide the illegal substance.

The Central News Agency reports that water pipe delivery services are being used as a cover to smuggle drugs as the illegal substances are delivered via motorcycles to users.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun underwent routine medical checkups at the Hotel Dieu Hospital in Ashrafieh in Beirut on Friday.

Witnesses told Naharnet that the MP was seen exiting the hospital at around 3:30 pm on Friday.

A congressional delegation arrived in Lebanon on Friday where it held talks with a number of officials including President Michel Suleiman, said the U.S. Embassy in a statement.

It traveled to Lebanon as part of a broader Middle East mission and a continuation of the partnership between the U.S. Congress and the Lebanese parliament, it stated.

Speaker Nabih Berri stressed on Friday the importance of Palestinian national unity given the talk of the recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

He said upon his arrival in Tehran to take part in the fifth international conference to support the Palestinian intifada: “It’s important to reveal to the world the conspiracies being plotted against the Palestinian cause.”

Deputy Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Nick Kaldas slammed Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s alleged accusations that he was a “stooge for Israel and the CIA” while investigating the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

“They’re very, very hurtful, damaging allegations. No evidence whatsoever has been put up by him,” Nick Kaldas told SBS journalist Yaara Bou Melhem.

A meeting was held between members of the Lebanese Democratic Party, the Progressive Socialist Party and Hizbullah at the residence of LDP leader MP Talal Arslan in Khalde, a statement said Friday.

The statement said that Wafiq Safa and Bilal Dagher represented Hizbullah while MP Akram Shehayyeb and Salah al-Btedini attended the meeting on behalf of Walid Jumblat’s PSP.

Seven masked gunmen broke into the home of al-Mustaqbal official Amer al-Mohammed in the region of Wadi Khaled in Akkar on Thursday night with the intention of abducting him, the National News Agency reported.

But when the men entered the home in the town of al-Amayer, they realized that al-Mohammed was not there, NNA said.

Syrian authorities have seized at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing weapons and ammunition being smuggled from Lebanon, the state run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), reported late Thursday.

The truck smuggling the arms had an Iraqi license plate, it said. Authorities found 125 machine pump-action shotguns and more than 30,000 bullets for pistols secretly hidden in the truck, SANA added.

Premier Najib Miqati has rejected reports about the isolation of Lebanon following his meetings with U.S. officials in New York and alleged warnings that the international community would adopt certain measures against the country if it didn’t back U.N. Security Council sanctions on Syria.

In remarks to satellite TV network al-Arabiya on Thursday, Miqati said: “Lebanon is not in isolation and no one can isolate it.”

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat, who is expected to arrive in Paris on Saturday, might hold talks with former Premier Saad Hariri, media reports said.

A March 14 leader told al-Joumhouria newspaper that a series of meetings could be held among opposition members on the sidelines of the wedding of former Culture Minister Ghassan Salameh’s daughter to discuss the local developments and the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.