The Lebanese army said Wednesday it arrested a man wanted for a deadly attack in 2009 on the military and the recent kidnappings of several individuals in return for ransom.

The army command said in a communique that Ali Mohammed Hassan al-Masri was arrested on Tuesday night in eastern Lebanon's Ras Baalbek.

International oil companies are competing over exploiting Lebanon's large energy reserves detected off its coast as analysts say it could redraw the energy landscape of the region.

“The value of the gas and crude oil reserves in Lebanon is worth $140 billion… (Our) company has found (in Lebanon) a quantity of oil that could make the country one of the biggest gas producers in the Middle East,” British newspaper The Times quoted chief executive officer of the British Spectrum Geo Inc. David Rowlands as saying.

An optimism by al-Mustaqbal movement on consensus among the opposition factions and the centrist Progressive Socialist Party on an electoral draft-law was played down on Wednesday by both PSP chief Walid Jumblat and March 14 opposition MP Butros Harb.

“There is nothing final yet on the electoral draft-law,” Jumblat told An Nahar newspaper.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour said on Tuesday that al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc demands the adoption of a position of enmity towards Syria “while they sought Syrian support in the past”.

"We will not adopt a hostile stand towards,” Mansour confirmed in an interview with al-Manar television.

The joint command of the rebel Free Syrian Army on Tuesday accused Hizbullah of “preparing to send between 4,000-5,000 fighters to Syria via Homs over the next few days.”

“On Sunday evening, Hizbullah trained its members in the Western Bekaa area near the Lebanese town of Mashghara, in preparation for sending a new batch of fighters to Syria,” the joint command said in a statement.

A German journalist handed over by Syria to the Russian envoy in Damascus Tuesday has left the strife-torn country and is now at the German embassy in Lebanon, Germany's foreign ministry said.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is "relieved" that Billy Six, who works for the Junge Freiheit weekly and went missing in Syria late December, is now in the "safe care" of the embassy in Beirut, a ministry spokesman said.

Supporters of Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir on Tuesday staged a sit-in at Sidon's Elia roundabout as the Islamist cleric himself led a rally in the Beirut district of Tariq al-Jadideh.

Speaking at the Sidon sit-in, Asir's adviser Sheikh Ahmed Hariri reiterated the cleric's demands. He called on state authorities to remove “Hizbullah's weapons from the two apartments in Abra,” east of Sidon.

Al-Mustaqbal bloc demanded on Tuesday discharging Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour of his duties following comments made by Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim Ali after meeting with him, accusing Syria's diplomat of continuing to “violate Lebanese territories”.

“Violating Lebanese sovereignty and attacking border villages and citizens are not acceptable,” al-Mustaqbal lawmakers stated in a released statement after their weekly meeting at the Center House, stressing that Mansour should be relieved of his duties after these “shameful comments”.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun announced on Tuesday his commitment to holding the parliamentary elections on time.

He added however that he opposes staging them according to the amended version of the 1960 law that was adopted during the last elections, held in 2009.

An inactive bomb was found on Tuesday in the Beirut neighborhood of Tariq al-Jadideh.

“An inactive bomb was discovered near Hansel stores in Afif al-Tibi Street in Tariq al-Jadideh,” al-Jadeed television reported.