An explosion tore through a restaurant in the southern city of Tyre at dawn Wednesday in an alleged attempt to thwart its owner from holding New Year’s Eve celebrations and serving alcohol.

The explosion, which happened at around 5:00 am local time, was caused by a two kilogram bomb made of TNT that was left on the staircase of the seaside Tyros restaurant. There were no injuries.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun revealed on Tuesday that armed individuals had infiltrated Lebanon in the east, indirectly implying that they had arrived from Syria.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “We will support Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi’s position on the possession of arms in Lebanon when the time comes.”

Former premier Saad Hariri on Monday said the Arab League should seek a “no-fly zone” over revolt-hit Syria, stressing that “everything must be done” to stop what he called a “massacre.”

“The Arab League should go to the U.N. and (seek) a no-fly zone (over Syria) and if Russia vetoes (the resolution) then a joint force should be formed with Turkey,” Hariri said on the social networking website Twitter.

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel on Monday said the remarks voiced by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in his Christmas sermon were “in line with the principles Bkirki has endorsed since the year 2000 concerning the need to accomplish national sovereignty.”

Sovereignty “can only be achieved if power is in the hand of the state,” Gemayel said in an interview on MTV.

Heavy gunfire killed more than 30 people in Syria's besieged city of Homs on Monday as newly arriving Arab League observers were urged to head immediately to one of the country's most serious hot spots.

Media reports said an initial group of 50 observers arrived in Syria Monday evening to oversee a deal aimed at ending a bloody crackdown on anti-regime dissent, while other reports said the monitors' arrival was yet to be confirmed.

The Arab League must bring the U.N. into the effort to stop Syria's bloody crackdown on protesters, the top opposition leader said Sunday, as security forces pressed ahead with raids and arrests around the country.

Burhan Ghalioun, the Paris-based leader of the Syrian National Council, made the plea as Arab League officials were setting up observer teams, part of their plan to end nine months of turmoil that has killed more than 5,000 people, according to the U.N.

At least 25 people were killed on Saturday several Syrian cities where the protests against President Bashar Assad's regime erupted in March, a rights group said.

Local Coordination Committees said that Syrian security forces shot dead 25 civilians in Homs, Daraa, Aleppo, Reef Damascus, and Idlib.

Syrian security forces on Friday killed at least 14 civilians, a human rights group said, as protesters took to the streets across the country under the slogan "Protocol of death, a license to kill," in reference to the protocol recently signed between Syria and the Arab League on sending observers to the country.

Three people were killed in Daraa province, south of the capital, cradle of the protest movement against President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received by Agence France Presse.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri noted on Friday that some members of the Lebanese government are seeking to drag Lebanon onto a path of terrorism through covering up the Syrian regime’s crimes.

He made his statements in light of the twin bomb attacks that took place in Damascus earlier on Friday and the Syrian Foreign Ministry’s statements that Lebanon had warned earlier this week that members of al-Qaida had infiltrated the country.

Former PM Saad Hariri said Thursday that the wage hike decision made by the government is “shameful and a political bill that the Lebanese will pay from their economic future and their livelihood.”

On Wednesday, the Free Patriotic Movement, Hizbullah and Amal dealt a blow to Miqati after they voted in favor of a wage boost decree proposed by Nahhas hours after the Economic Committees and the General Labor Confederation agreed with minor changes on a previous proposal made by the PM.