Palestinian factions have taken precautionary measures to prevent the infiltration of Fatah al-Islam militants, who escaped from Roumieh prison over the weekend, into Palestinian camps in the north, the factions said in a statement.

They announced that joint security forces launched patrols at the Beddawi camp and closed all entrances to the shantytown.

The Libyan government insisted Zawiyah was under the regime's control on Saturday, dismissing rebel claims of having captured the port city on the road to Tripoli.

Zawiyah is completely under government control, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told reporters in the capital.

A group of suspects arrested for having ties with the Fatah al-Islam terrorist network was released on Tuesday and several more will be set free in the next few days to reach their number to 16, An Nahar newspaper reported.

The daily said that three Lebanese – Khodr Merhi, Samir Daoud and Bilal al-Masri – arrived in the southern port city of Tripoli at around 8:30 pm Tuesday accompanied by their lawyer Osama Shaaban.

The military prosecutor general has charged two Lebanese men with allegedly smuggling weapons from the Beirut Marina to Syria, a security source told As Safir daily published Saturday.

Wasim Tamim and Samir Tamim, who hail from the northern port city of Tripoli, are members of the most prominent movements in the former parliamentary majority, sources said in reference to ex-PM Saad Hariri’s al-Mustaqbal movement.

Thousands of people demonstrated in the northern port city of Tripoli on Friday night to protest Syrian President Bashar Assad’s deadly crackdown on pro-freedom protestors.

The demonstrators marched at around 11:00 pm in several Tripoli neighborhoods after holding a sit-in at the city’s al-Tall square. They returned to the square and held prayers for the soul of thousands of people killed by the regime in Syria.

NATO warplanes bombed the Libyan capital early Friday, state television said, as Moammar Gadhafi's regime accused rebels of sabotaging a key pipeline feeding the country's sole functioning refinery.

About 10 loud explosions rocked the city around 1:30 am (11:30 GMT), an Agence France Presse journalist said.

Hundreds of Islamists held a protest in the northern port city of Tripoli after the Tarawih prayers on Wednesday night to condemn Syria’s deadly crackdown on protestors calling for reform.

Islamist and Salafist groups, in addition to al-Jamaa al-Islamiyah and Hizb ut-Tahrir held the demonstration in Tripoli’s Abi Samra neighborhood in support of the Syrian people.

From Syria to Libya and Egypt, the uprisings and unrest gripping the Arab world have cast a pall on the start of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month when the traditional focus on piety will likely be eclipsed by more unrest.

Food prices — part of the economic hardships that catalyzed the ouster of the Egyptian and Tunisian leaders — are still climbing. And protesters have shown little patience for conciliatory gestures by governments after decades of empty promises.

Libyan rebels were on Saturday probing the death of their army chief General Abdel Fatah Yunis, a murder the Gadhafi regime blamed on al-Qaida, as NATO warplanes targeted the strongman's "terror broadcasts."

"The NTC has appointed an investigative committee and we will publish all the facts of this investigation," said Ali Tarhuni, who handles economic affairs for the rebel National Transitional Council.

Security forces have arrested 3 people for opening fire from a speeding car near the home of Arab Democratic Party official Rifaat Eid in Tripoli’s Jabal Mohsen neighborhood.

The party’s politburo member Abdel Latif Saleh told Voice of Lebanon radio station (93.3) that the assailants opened fire on the house of ADP’s political affairs officer Rifaat Eid.