U.S. embassy officials visiting south Lebanon Thursday were attacked, but unhurt, by residents accusing them of being "Israeli conspirators," in the second such incident in a week, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Around 60 supporters of leftist groups gathered outside a government office in the port city of Sidon and pelted an embassy convoy with stones as it drove by, with some shouting "Americans, Israeli conspirators, in our government offices."

As popular revolts continue to shake the Arab world, the political stalemate in Lebanon is unlikely to end soon because key players Syria and Saudi Arabia are busy on other fronts, analysts say.

"The situation is very tense in the region and everyone is waiting to see how the political landscape is going to change," said Hilal Khashan, political science professor at the American University of Beirut.

"We saw a helicopter in the sky, we called for help and the soldiers picked us up" in Ivory Coast's embattled economic capital Abidjan, a rescued Lebanese woman said after being flown to Senegal.

The woman, who declined to give her name, said that she and seven rescued members of her family had been trapped by heavy fighting and also at the mercy of looters.

The AMAL party condemned on Thursday the recent WikiLeaks report that focused on a meeting between party leader Speaker Nabih Berri and former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman, which it said was part of a “political campaign aimed at eliminating AMAL and tarnishing it reputation.”

The cable is part of a conspiratorial political plan that has failed before and will fail again, the party said in a statement.

President Michel Suleiman stressed on Thursday that the prison file will be a priority for the new government where it will implement “radical solutions to its chronic problems.”

He made his statements during a meeting with caretaker Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar, Internal Security Forces chief Ashraf Rifi, and acting gendarmerie chief Salah Jebran on the prison file.

Caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri ordered the formation of a committee to support and aid the Lebanese expatriates in the Ivory Coast based on recommendations of the Higher Relief Commission’s latest meeting.

The committee will be place a plan to help evacuate expatriates seeking to flee the African country, as well as provide their basic needs through the cooperation of ministries, public administrations, security forces, and the Lebanese Embassy in the Ivory Coast.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea criticized on Thursday the equation of the army-people-Resistance, saying that the idea of a state and Resistance cannot exist at the same time.

He stated: “The other camp’s statements indicate that their idea of a nation is the resistance, while the nation we are seeking to establish is insignificant to them.”

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams held talks on Thursday with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, during which he welcomed his calls for openness and dialogue with other religions and other countries.

He said after the meeting: “I told him that the slogan of ‘Partnership and Love’ he has chosen was very timely and essential in this period of turbulence in the Arab region.”

A leaked U.S. Embassy cable published exclusively in Al-Akhbar on Thursday revealed that Speaker Nabih Berri believed that Hizbullah underestimated Israel’s response to the party’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers that sparked the July 2006 war.

He made his statements to former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman, who also reported him as saying that Berri is definitely Iran and Syria’s ally … but it would be wrong to look at him as a milder copy of Hizbullah.

Caretaker Premier Saad Hariri stressed on Thursday that the biggest challenge facing the Arab world is “Iran’s persistent violations,” rejecting the Iranian intervention in the internal affairs of Arab countries.

Hariri accused the Iranian authorities of trying to turn Lebanon and other Gulf states into an Iranian protectorate.