Around 200 Syrian expats rallied in front of the Syrian embassy in Beirut on Sunday, shouting slogans in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is facing unprecedented domestic pressure as protests and clashes erupt across Syria, Agence France Presse reported.
Demonstrators in front of the embassy in the Beirut area of Hamra held pictures of Assad, chanting "With our souls, with our blood, we will sacrifice for you, Bashar" as Lebanese security forces and army troops cordoned off the area and started checking IDs.

A delegation from Syrian intelligence services was recently dispatched to Tripoli to scrub the Libyan intelligence archives clean of all the records detailing past projects that the two countries had collaborated on, the ‘Weekly Standard’ U.S. magazine reported.
It said one Arabic-language website claimed that former Syrian vice president Abdel-Halim Khaddam was involved in the disappearance of Imam Moussa al-Sadr, the Iranian-born Lebanese cleric who went missing in Libya in 1978.

Saudi Arabia has decided to contribute 10 million dollars to the budget of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, western diplomatic sources said.
The sources told the Central News Agency and several other agencies that Riyadh informed tribunal officials about its decision.
Full StoryCaretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri has reportedly told March 14 officials not to target Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat who has fallen out of the alliance.
“I don’t want anyone to target Walid Jumblat ever,” Hariri has said, according to the Kuwaiti daily al-Anbaa.

March 14 lawmakers Ammar Houri and Oqab Saqr warned that Syrian meddling in the Lebanese government formation process would take back the country to the era of hegemony.
Al-Mustaqbal bloc MP Houri told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published Sunday that he rejects interfering in the internal affairs of any country just as he is against the meddling of any side in Lebanon’s affairs.

Premier-designate Najib Miqati’s sources remained mum over the weekend on the consultations between him and Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform Bloc over the controversial interior ministry portfolio.
Bloc member MP Farid al-Khazen said however that the cabinet would not be formed soon and the size of the government hasn’t been settled yet.

A bomb targeted a Syriac Orthodox church in the eastern city of Zahle’s industrial district at dawn Sunday, causing heavy material damage.
The National News Agency said the 2-kilogram TNT explosives were planted outside the church’s doorstep and controlled by a mobile phone.

The Progressive Socialist Party on Sunday rejected the use of weapons locally and called for a defense strategy that protects Lebanon from Israeli attacks.
During its yearly general assembly meeting, the PSP said the use of weapons locally “would destroy all national achievements.” However, the party rejected to keep the country weak amid continued Israeli threats.
Full StoryA Fatah member was badly wounded after he was shot at in the southern refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh on Saturday night, An Nahar newspaper reported.
A Fatah official in the shantytown, Maher Shbayta, identified the wounded militant as Ayman al-Dajjani. He unveiled that Jund al-Sham member Ahmed Aa, opened fire on the man while he was driving in his vehicle in al-Fouqani street.

Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Nawwaf Moussawi stated that the dispute in Lebanon lies between those seeking to liberate Lebanon from tutelage, aggression, and occupation and those who want to subject Lebanon to colonialism and foreign hegemony.
He added: “The confrontation lies between those who want Lebanon to be the example of sociopolitical life based on unity and diversity and those who only see only see Lebanese as a number of sects.”
