The Pentagon is building a missile defense radar station at a covert location in Qatar, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The site will be part of a system intended to defend the interests of the United States and its allies against Iranian rockets, unnamed U.S. officials told the newspaper.

Al-Jazeera television aired Tuesday a video it received from the abductors of 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims who were kidnapped in Syria in May, in which the kidnappers announced they will release two of the captives.

“In response to the appeal of the Muslim Scholars Committee in Lebanon, we will hand over two of the guests in our custody to their families under the supervision of the Muslim Scholars Committee in Lebanon and the state of Qatar,” the abductors said in what they dubbed “Statement Number 3.”

Syrian ambassador to Iraq Nawaf Fares, who announced his defection to the opposition, is now in Qatar, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said on Thursday.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati discussed on Wednesday with Saudi Ambassador Ali Awadh Asiri his country’s travel restriction advisory to Lebanon.

“The cabinet is taking all the necessary measures to maintain security and stability in Lebanon,” Miqati told Asiri.

Gas-rich Qatar's sovereign wealth fund plans to build luxury hotels in Malaysia, Paris, London and China named after Harrods, the world's famous department store, a report said Wednesday.

Under a $636 million plan Qatar Holding will partner a local Malaysian firm Jerantas to construct a hotel in Kuala Lumpur's golden triangle's shopping district of Bukit Bintang.

The Saudi foreign ministry issued on Monday a travel restriction advisory to Lebanon, the official SPA news agency said.

“Due to the unstable security situation in Lebanon, the foreign ministry warns its citizens against traveling to Lebanon to maintain their safety, until further notice,” an unidentified high-ranking official in the ministry told the news agency.

President Michel Suleiman traveled to Bahrain on Tuesday as part of his efforts to convince the leaderships of four Gulf countries to review their travel advisories to Lebanon.

He held talks with King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa on bilateral ties and the situation in the Middle East.

The Saudi Embassy in Lebanon denied on Friday that it asked its nationals that are currently present in the country to leave by the end of June.

"The report, which was published in a Lebanese newspaper, is completely false,” the embassy said in a statement.

U.S. intelligence operatives in Turkey are vetting the flow of weapons to Syrian rebels to ensure they do not fall into the hands of Al-Qaida militants, the New York Times reported Thursday.

The Times cited unnamed U.S. officials and Arab intelligence officials as saying the weapons were being paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and funneled across the border by a shadowy opposition network.

An electrical fault caused a shopping mall blaze last month that killed 19 people, most of them children, at an unlicensed Doha nursery, state news agency QNA quoted investigators on Wednesday as saying.

The fire began in a sporting goods store in Villagio Mall, next to the Gympanzee nursery, where 13 children died.