The Phalange Party on Monday noted that the recent violence in Tripoli had exposed the extent of the security chaos in the country and the “frightening” proliferation of weapons in the northern city.

In a statement issued after its weekly meeting, the party’s political bureau warned that such incidents would import the Syrian crisis into Lebanon.

A fugitive was killed and another wounded on Monday when security forces opened fire on a car that tried to escape a checkpoint in the Beirut eastern suburb of Nabaa, state-run National News Agency reported.

NNA identified the slain man as Munir Munir Zoaiter and the wounded accomplice as Ali Hatem Zoaiter, saying they were wanted on several arrest warrants for involvement in murder and theft.

Saudi Arabia will be the first country to contribute troops should a joint U.N.-Arab peacekeeping force proposed by the Arab League see light, journalistic sources in the kingdom said, following the sharp toned remarks voiced by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal during the League’s meeting on Sunday.

“The Royal Saudi Land Forces will be at the forefront of participants in the peacekeeping mission in Syria should the decision taken by the Arab foreign ministers during their meeting in Cairo yesterday be approved,” journalistic sources in Saudi Arabia told Naharnet.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat condemned on Monday Lebanon’s position on the Arab League decision on Syria, saying that it had failed the Syrian people.

He said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa magazine: “Lebanon shied away from its political, humanitarian, and moral responsibilities towards ending oppression against the Syrian people when it voiced reservations on the Arab League decision.”

A Lebanese website for craftsmen was recently launched to help citizens search for appropriate construction work professionals.

M3allem.com (www.m3allem.com) is a new concept that aims to link between a two-sided existing demand: the possibility to have a complete and reliable resource of construction work professionals and the necessity for each and every craftsman to be online - at a time

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Sunday stressed that his ministers “will not leave the government.”

“Let the premier quit” instead, Aoun said in an interview on Al-Jadeed television.

A commission tasked with drafting a new Syrian constitution submitted a draft charter to President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday, the official SANA news agency reported.

"Assad on Sunday received a copy of the new draft constitution from the head of the national committee charged with drafting a new constitution for the Syrian Arab Republic," SANA said.

The Arab League said it agreed on Sunday to open contacts with Syria's opposition and to ask the United Nations to form a joint peacekeeping force to the unrest-swept country in moves swiftly rejected by Syria.

Arab diplomats "will open channels of communication with the Syrian opposition and offer full political and financial support, urging (the opposition) to unify its ranks," it said in a statement obtained by Agence France Presse.

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri voiced his support for Syria's uprising and urged Muslims in several countries, including Lebanon, to come to the aid of Syrian rebels confronting President Bashar Assad's forces.

"I appeal to every Muslim and every free, honorable one in Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, to rise to help his brothers in Syria with all that he can," Zawahiri said in a new video message released on jihadist Internet forums, U.S. monitors SITE Intelligence said on Sunday.

A ceasefire was announced on Saturday between the rival Tripoli neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen under the army’s sponsorship after fierce clashes killed and wounded a number of civilians and troops.

The Lebanese army is deployed on the outskirts of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tebbaneh, namely near Syria Street which separates the rival neighborhoods.