Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun stated on Friday that Lebanon’s national unity is more important than the presidency.

He added before a youth delegation in Rabieh: “Prime Minister-designate Najib Miqati should take risks or resign.”

A leaked U.S. Embassy cable published exclusively in Al-Akhbar on Thursday revealed that Speaker Nabih Berri believed that Hizbullah underestimated Israel’s response to the party’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers that sparked the July 2006 war.

He made his statements to former U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman, who also reported him as saying that Berri is definitely Iran and Syria’s ally … but it would be wrong to look at him as a milder copy of Hizbullah.

Caretaker Health Minister Mohammed Jawad Khalife has warned that Hizbullah would “turn our life into hell politically” if Syria failed to reach an agreement with the U.N. commission investigating ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination.

During a meeting with then U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman on September 28, 2006, and according to a WikiLeaks cable, Khalife said car bombings and “terrorist attacks” would resume in Lebanon if Damascus failed to strike a deal with the U.N. investigators.

French Ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton on Wednesday said his country was not worried over the delay in forming a new Lebanese cabinet, noting that Saad Hariri's cabinet took five months in the making.

In an interview with Al-Jadeed television, Pietton said premier-designate Najib Miqati's mission was being hindered by the "conflicting demands" of the political parties.

MP Marwan Hamadeh stressed the importance of money in confronting Hizbullah’s growing influence in Lebanon, revealed a leaked U.S. Embassy cable published in Al-Akhbar newspaper on Wednesday.

The August 2006 WikiLeaks cable spoke of a meeting between Hamadeh, then MP Nayla Mouawad, and then U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman during which they hoped that the American administration would pressure Arab gulf states to transfer political funds to the March 14 camp to confront Hizbullah.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has said that Syria was most likely behind the abduction of seven Estonian tourists and blamed the failure of Premier-designate Najib Miqati to form a government on divisions among the March 8 forces.

“When we see that four, five days ago the Syrian brothers started telling the Estonian government through mediators that they can help in this, and crossing that with other almost confirmed information that they (Estonian hostages) are now in Syria or at the very least if they were not in Syria then the key to the hand (that is holding them) is in Syria … the issue becomes clear,” Geagea told The Daily Star in an interview published Wednesday.

President Michel Suleiman hoped on Saturday for the return of stability to Syria and expressed his confidence in the Assad regime’s ability to overcome the crisis.

Suleiman made the remark during talks with the Secretary-General of the Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council, Nasri Khoury.

Syrian security forces opened fire on protesters on Friday north of Damascus and in the south of the country, killing at least nine people, a witness and a human rights activist said, as thousands of Syrians staged demonstrations after Friday prayers.

At least eight protesters fell in Douma, 15 kilometers north of the Syrian capital when police opened fire after protesters emerging from a mosque pelted them with stones, the witness told Agence France Presse by telephone.

The Israeli military held a set of war games this week aimed at preparing the army for all-out war with Hizbullah, Syria and Hamas, the Jerusalem Post reported.

The drill did not include soldiers or live-fire exercises, but was held to drill commanders and their decisions in the event of a large-scale war on multiple fronts, it said.

The United States urged Americans on Thursday to avoid travel to Syria and advised those already there to consider leaving a country that is reeling from weeks of deadly political unrest.

"We urge U.S. citizens to defer non-essential travel to Syria at this time. U.S. citizens currently in Syria should consider departing," the State Department said in a statement.