Security forces arrested a gang on Monday as it was trying to steal power generators in the Koura district, reported the National News Agency.

The three suspects, who hail from Qobbeh in the northern city of Tripoli, confessed to committing over five other burglaries in the town of Kfar Hazir in Koura.

Two children died and two twin infants suffered from smoke inhalation when a house went on fire in the northern port city of Tripoli, As Safir daily reported Monday.

Five-year-old Rayan al-Asmar and his younger brother Walid al-Asmar, 3, died when their apartment that lies at Dar al-Shamal building at the entrance of the Zahriyeh district was engulfed in flames on Sunday night, the newspaper said.

Three soldiers were wounded when unknown assailants opened fire Saturday night at an army checkpoint in the northern city of Tripoli, reported Voice of Lebanon radio on Sunday.

A security official told Agence France Presse that the shooting took place at a checkpoint located between the rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen.

For three long weeks, Murhaf was stuck in Homs' notorious Baba Amr district, in central Syria. By the time he got to hospital in Lebanon, like many others, he had to undergo an amputation.

The 30-year-old is among a growing number of Syrians wounded in the violence sweeping their country and losing limbs for lack of proper medical care, especially in opposition strongholds targeted by regime forces.

Scores of Syrians arrived on Monday in northern Lebanon, fleeing the central city of Homs following reports of women and children being massacred in the protest hub.

"We ran away after we heard of the massacre in Karm el-Zaytoun and after families from the neighborhood told us what happened there," Um Mohammed told an Agence France Presse reporter after arriving in the coastal Lebanese city of Tripoli with her husband and daughter.

Tribal and political leaders declared Libya's oil-rich eastern region of Cyrenaica as autonomous on Tuesday, raising fears the country may break up in the wake of Moammar Gadhafi’s downfall.

At a conference attended by about 3,000 people in Benghazi, the major eastern city and cradle of an eight-month uprising against Gadhafi that ended in his capture and killing, they also called for a return to federalism in Libya.

Amid strict security measures and a heavy deployment of troops, Beirut’s Martyrs Square on Sunday was once again the scene of two rival yet peaceful demos supportive and critical of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Speaking at the anti-Assad rally, Salafist cleric Ahmed al-Asir, Imam of Sidon's Bilal bin Rabah mosque, condemned the international community’s refusal to intervene in Syria to end its crisis.

An Audit Bureau report on the red diesel scandal has laid blame on the government, the consumer protection authority and the companies that made millions of dollars of profits, As Safir daily reported on Wednesday.

The newspaper said that the report of the Bureau’s prosecutor, Judge Bassam Wehbe, first blamed the government for not including an implementation mechanism in its decision to slash the Value Added Tax during a period of one month.

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel said on Thursday that ending “statelets” and “closed security zones” would help build the Lebanese state.

He said: “Lebanon’s sovereignty cannot be established without eliminating the possession of illegitimate arms.”

Around five high-ranking employees at the oil refineries and the consumer protection authority have been accused of involvement in the red diesel scandal, al-Liwaa newspaper reported on Friday.

The daily quoted a judicial official as saying that the Audit Bureau’s general prosecutor, Bassam Wehbe, issued his investigation report last Saturday and referred the five officials for prosecution.