Caretaker Energy Minister Jebran Bassil has reportedly informed Premier-designate Tammam Salam that the Change and Reform bloc was no longer part of the March 8 alliance.

Al-Joumhouria newspaper said Bassil told Salam during a meeting they held on Tuesday that the Free Patriotic Movement's conditions in the cabinet line-up were separate from those set by Hizbullah and Amal movement.

Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel denied on Wednesday that he was pelted with stones by residents of Beirut's southern suburbs, saying there was only a dispute between them and members of his security team.

His press office said in a statement that the reports about the assault were “exaggerated.”

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon denied that his country was involved in the blast that target Bir al-Abed neighborhood in Beirut's southern suburbs.

“The civil war in Syria has spilled over into Lebanon after Hizbullah interfered in it,” Yaalon said.

The U.N. Security Council strongly condemned a car bomb attack in Beirut's southern suburbs on Tuesday and raised fears about the growing spread of the Syria conflict.

The 15-nation council renewed appeals for all groups to stay out of the Syrian war despite growing cross border attacks in a statement released after a meeting on mounting tensions in Lebanon.

The European Union and Britain have strongly condemned the bombing that hit the Beirut southern suburb of Bir al-Abed.

“I condemn today’s explosion in southern Beirut. My thoughts are with those injured in the attack and their families,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.

Gunmen have kidnapped a Lebanese national from a construction site in southern Nigeria, where abductions for ransom occur frequently, authorities said on Tuesday.

The assailants kidnapped Sani Youssef, an employee with Lebanese-owned Setraco Nigeria Limited construction company in Benin City in the southern state of Edo on Monday, police spokesman Moses Eguavoen told Agence France Presse.

Iran has strongly condemned the bombing that targeted the Beirut southern suburb of Bir al-Abed on Tuesday.

Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Araqchi said the move was an “ominous conspiracy” plotted by “the Israeli regime and its allies in the region,” in remarks carried by the website of Iran's English-language Press TV.

Al-Mustaqbal bloc warned on Tuesday that the explosion at a parking lot in the Bir al-Abed area of the southern suburb of Beirut aimed at “targeting national unity.”

"We condemn the blast that targeted Bir al-Abed and we consider that the criminal hands behind it aimed at destabilizing security and inciting people against each others and causing strife in the country,” the MPs said in a released statement after the bloc's weekly meeting at the Center House.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Tuesday blamed the Dahieh bombing on “those who endorse the Takfiri ideology” and “those who make fiery speeches.”

“The bombing incident must not only be a subject for condemnation. Everyone who endorses an explosive rhetoric must be condemned and the person who detonates a bomb in residential neighborhoods is a major criminal,” Aoun said after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform bloc in Rabiyeh.

Caretaker Energy Minister Jebran Bassil held talks on Tuesday with Speaker Nabih Berri on the petroleum file and the need for cabinet to convene in order to follow up on this issue.

He said: “We hope that this meeting will mark the beginning of progress that can be achieved over this issue.”