The Kataeb Party renewed on Tuesday its demand for the election of a new president, saying that a new head of state will restore normalcy to state institutions.

It said in a statement after its weekly politburo meeting: “Complete internal stability cannot be achieved without a president, who safeguards the national pact and constitution.”

Defense lawyers for leading Syrian opposition figure Louay Hussein denied all charges against him Tuesday as a criminal court in Damascus said it would announce its verdict on March 25.

In a hearing at the second chamber of Damascus' Criminal Court, Hussein's lawyers demanded an acquittal of their client and a lift on his travel ban.

The Arab League will consider setting up a defense unit to battle the spread of the Islamic State group at its annual summit later this month, an official said Tuesday.

Deputy chief Ahmed Ben Helli told reporters that the March 28-29 meeting in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh will discuss an Egyptian initiative to create a "unified Arab force".

A United Nations delegation in Syria met the governor of Aleppo on Tuesday as the U.N. pushes a plan to freeze fighting in the divided northern city, officials said.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura has made the Aleppo plan the centerpiece of his efforts to mediate a halt to fighting in Syria's devastating civil war.

Seventeen Assyrians fleeing the Islamic State extremist group were granted entry into Lebanon, reported the National News Agency on Tuesday.

It said that they entered the country through the Masnaa border-crossing on Monday night.

A delegation of bishops visited Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Michel Aoun in Rabieh on Tuesday to discuss with him the conditions of Christians in the Orient.

The delegation included bishops Issam Darwish, George Saliba, Boulos Safar and Rweiss al-Orashalimi.

The armed groups entrenched along Lebanon's eastern border are reportedly preparing to advance towards army posts on the outskirts of the northeastern villages of Ras Baalbek and Arsal, Ad Diyar newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Sources told the newspaper that there are around 3,000 to 4,000 armed man on the outskirts of the two villages, and coordination between the Islamist groups, in particular between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front resumed.

Israel reportedly expressed readiness to increase tension along the border with Lebanon to block the road on Hizbullah's movement and expansion in Syria, in particular in the Golan Heights.

Western diplomatic sources quoted high-ranking Israeli officials as saying that the developments in the Golan are planned by the Islamic Republic of Iran and directly linked to the negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program.

The United States will be ready to "protect" moderate Syrian rebels possibly with air power once they enter into combat, a top U.S. official said Monday.

Retired U.S. general John Allen, President Barack Obama's envoy to the international coalition fighting the Islamic State group, insisted that once moderate Syrian rebels were vetted, trained and armed, they would not be abandoned on the battlefield.

Kosovo has indicted seven ethnic Albanians on terrorism charges over alleged plans to take up arms with the Islamic State group or recruit fighters for the insurgents, officials said Monday.

Five of the indicted "agreed to go to the war in Syria and join the group of Albanians who fight on the side of the terrorist organization ISIL", known also as IS, the Kosovo prosecutor's office said in a statement.