Political and security efforts accelerated on Saturday to contain the repercussions of Friday's incident that killed a group of Lebanese Islamists from Tripoli in the Syrian border town of Tall Kalakh, As Safir daily said Saturday.

The army had been heavily deployed along the aptly named Syria Street dividing Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen in Tripoli, in a bid to deter any security deterioration, the daily added.

At least 17 Lebanese Islamists were killed in Syria on Friday as they were infiltrating the country, reported various media outlets.

Agence France Presse said that 17 Lebanese Sunni fighters were killed in Syria's Tal Kalakh border area in an ambush carried out by regime forces.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun accused the Mustaqbal Movement and its allies of “oppressing” Christian factions in Lebanon through their practices over the parliamentary electoral law.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting: “Its allies, the Lebanese Forces and Phalange Party, are unjustly treating other Christian powers in Lebanon.”

Politically divided Lebanese made on Saturday a show of unity during an official ceremony in Rome that allowed Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi to join the elite club of churchmen who will elect the next pope.

Pope Benedict XVI formally elevated five other prelates at the ceremony that was held at St. Peter's Basilica, bestowing red hats and gold rings on them.

Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi told supporters on Thursday that Egypt was on the path to "freedom and democracy," a day after he assumed sweeping powers that critics said made him a dictator.

"Political stability, social stability and economic stability are what I want and that is what I am working for," he told an Islamist rally outside the presidential palace.

Pope Benedict XVI met on Friday with President Michel Suleiman who is in Rome to attend the ceremony of the official appointment of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi as cardinal.

Suleiman did not make any statement after the meeting held at the Vatican.

Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani on Friday noted that “Lebanese leaders enjoy the sufficient capability to resolve their problems," adding that "some forces want to destabilize Lebanon but do not have the ability to do so."

Larijani was in Beirut as part of a regional tour aimed at finding ways to resolve the crisis in Syria, media reports said.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea issued on Wednesday an open letter to Speaker Nabih Berri, condemning the continued parliamentary meetings in light of the 25 assassinations and failed assassination attempts in Lebanon in the past few years.

He declared: “We will not perform any routine duty until assassinations in Lebanon end.”

A Hizbullah official in south Lebanon said the party was on full alert in case of any Israeli attack in light of the aggression on the Gaza Strip, but denied fighters were policing the border to prevent attacks on the Jewish state.

"This is a job for the (Lebanese) army and United Nations peacekeepers, not Hizbullah," the official told the Associated Press.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati on Tuesday stressed that Lebanon's borders will not be used to send weapons to Gaza, noting that Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah only voiced “political” remarks in this regard.

“The border will not be opened and Nasrallah's remarks are political remarks. Weapons will not be sent from Lebanon to Gaza,” Miqati said in response to a question during an interview with LBCI television in Paris where he is on an official visit.