Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea condemned on Wednesday the attacks against the French unit in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon that took place near Sidon on Tuesday, thanking the French government for all its support for Lebanon.

He noted: “The security situation can never turn to normal as long as there are hundreds of thousands of unofficial security apparatuses.”

A debate has emerged among the Lebanese forces allied to Syria over Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat’s recent positions, with some sides voicing their disappointment with them, revealed a March 8 source to al-Jumhuriya newspaper on Wednesday.

“We are monitoring his stances” in apprehension of any shift in his alliance, it added.

Phalange leader Amin Gemayel has reportedly said that his party would not engage in dialogue with representatives of Hizbullah who consider the four suspects accused of involvement in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s Feb. 2005 murder as “saints.”

An Nahar daily said Wednesday that Gemayel made his remarks to President Michel Suleiman the day before after the president launched consultations to inquire about the politicians’ viewpoints on his invitation for national dialogue.

U.S. Federal authorities said they have found fresh evidence of growing cooperation between the drug trade and “terrorists” in a probe of two major overseas networks of narcotics dealers.

The investigations resulted in the arrests of four men, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday warned Israel against stealing Lebanon’s maritime resources, vowing that his party will retaliate against any attack on Lebanon’s future oil and gas installations.

“I confidently say to all the countries, governments and companies that will submit tenders in order to start oil excavation that Lebanon is capable of protecting these companies and oil and gas installations,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech on the fifth anniversary of the July 2006 war.

The Mustaqbal bloc noted on Tuesday that the recent positions of Hizbullah and March 8 officials over President Michel Suleiman’s possible call for dialogue revealed that they are seeking to eliminate the results of the talks even before they are held.

It said in a statement after its weekly meeting: “Hizbullah rejected dialogue over its possession of arms … It appears that it has forgotten that the resistance weapons that liberated the South have lost their legitimacy after they were turned against fellow Lebanese and after they harbored the accused in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.”

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun stated on Tuesday that Internal Security Force chief Major General Ashraf Rifi’s several violations “make him ineligible to remain in his position in office.”

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “His statement that he was born out of the March 14 camp’s womb is one of his violations because this is not part of the ISF law.”

Israeli President Shimon Peres accused on Tuesday Iran of seeking to control the Middle East through Hizbullah and Hamas.

He said in an address to the Arab and Muslim world on the occasion of the month of Ramadan: “Tehran does not want the establishment of a stable Middle East, but it wants to take control of it through stirring tensions through Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”

An Israeli government spokesman accused Hizbullah of exploiting the issue of the maritime borders between Lebanon and Israel in order to wage a war against the Jewish state, reported al-Liwaa daily on Tuesday.

He added that Hizbullah is labeling this matter as “the maritime Shebaa Farms,” noting that it is a strictly political affair, which the party is employing for its interests.

The unprecedented revolt threatening the regime in Syria has placed key ally Hizbullah in a tight spot and prompted the Lebanese group to adopt a more measured attitude, analysts say.

"Hizbullah's margin of maneuver is currently very limited because the strategic Iran-Syria-Hizbullah axis is threatened by the revolt and this forces the group to act prudently," said Paris-based Middle East expert Agnes Levallois.