Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday accused Saudi Arabia of being behind the deadly bombings that targeted the Iranian embassy in southern Beirut, denying that large numbers of Hizbullah fighters were killed in the Syrian war.

“We believe the statement in which the Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack on the Iranian embassy, because it is a well-known group and its emir is Saudi and it is linked to the Saudi intelligence,” Nasrallah stated in an interview on OTV.

Lebanon was ranked in 127th place in a survey carried by graft watchdog Transparency International on corruption in the public sector in 177 countries.

TI collates expert views on the problem from bodies such as the World Bank, African Development Bank, Economist Intelligence Unit, Bertelsmann Foundation, Freedom House and other groups.

Syrian rebels, including jihadist groups, captured the historic Christian town of Maalula north of Damascus on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Rebels assaulted the town by rolling explosive-filled tires down the hills onto regime forces and were able to reach the city center after three days of intense fighting, with clashes still raging in the surrounding areas.

Paul Walker, the star of the "Fast & Furious" movie series, died Saturday in a car crash that killed one other person north of Los Angeles, his publicist said. He was 40.

Walker died Saturday afternoon, Ame Van Iden told The Associated Press.

Hizbullah is operating a fleet of 200 unmanned aerial vehicles on the border with Syria, American online newspaper World Tribune reported.

“Sources in the country said Hizbullah was operating UAVs throughout Lebanon,” the online news portal added

The nephew of Caretaker Agriculture Minister Hussein Hajj Hassan has been killed along with three other Hizbullah fighters in Syria's Qalamoun region, a source close to the party said on Thursday.

"Ali Rida Fouad Hajj Hassan, aged 22, was killed along with three other Hizbullah fighters in Qalamoun" north of Damascus on Wednesday, the source told Agence France Presse.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun accused Lebanese universities of causing politically-motivated standoffs between students.

“Universities are the roots of clashes between students because they forbid political dialogue on campus,” Aoun said after Change and Reform bloc's weekly meeting.

Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz held talks on Saturday with Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah al-Jaber al-Sabah and Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.

Sources told Naharnet that a Kuwaiti mediation succeed in rectifying the ties between Saudi Arabia and Qatar after disputes on regional developments.

President Michel Suleiman stated on Thursday that there is no independence in the country when armed groups get involved in a neighboring country's war.

“There is no independence when some Lebanese factions disregard national consensus, risk Lebanon's stability and get involved in the fighting in a neighboring country's war,” Suleiman said in a speech he gave on the eve of Independence Day.

Six mortar rounds crashed into a remote area of northeastern Saudi Arabia near a border triangle with Iraq and Kuwait, without causing damage, a border guard spokesman said Thursday.

General Mohammed al-Ghamidi said Saudi authorities were in "direct contact" with their neighbors to identify the source of Wednesday's shelling and to prevent a repetition.