President Michel Suleiman expressed “disgust” on Saturday over the pressure exerted on him to sign the $5.9 billion extra-budgetary spending bill.

Suleiman told al-Akhbar newspaper that “even if holding onto his stances cost him his post, he doesn’t care.”

Western diplomatic sources said on Saturday that the recent incidents in the northern city of Tripoli are the “beginning of a Salafist revolution aimed at providing the Free Syrian Army in Homs with ammunition.”

The sources told As Safir newspaper that the “Salafist revolution will begin in Tripoli and gradually expand to Akkar.”

The Syrian letter sent to the U.N. Security Council claiming that al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood are involved in incidents along the Lebanese-Syrian Border is merely an attempt by the Syrian authorities to intervene in Lebanon, An Nahar newspaper reported.

Informed sources told the daily that the Syrian allegations coincide with calls made by a well-known political party in northern Lebanon for the Syrian army to re-enter the country.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati welcomed on Saturday Speaker Nabih Berri’s initiative for dialogue over the recent clashes that erupted in the northern port city of Tripoli.

“Dialogue is the only way to resolve the situation in the city,” sources close to Miqati told As Safir newspaper.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel stressed on Saturday that the Lebanese authorities didn’t find any evidence proof that al-Qaida exists in Lebanon.

“If anyone had any information then they should inform us about it in order to traxk down these groups,” Charbel told al-Mustaqbal newspaper.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati on Friday hit back at Syria over a letter sent by its permanent U.N. envoy Bashar al-Jaafari to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon about the presence of alleged anti-Syria “terrorists” in Lebanon.

Miqati stressed that “the Lebanese government is fully performing its duty as to combating any type of terror operations, and in monitoring the Lebanese border, controlling the security situation and addressing any security gaps.”

The Mustaqbal Movement on Friday described a letter sent by Syria to the U.N. about the presence of “terrorists” in Lebanon as “fabricated accusations aimed at diverting attention from the regime’s blatant crimes.”

“The Mustaqbal Movement categorically denies the content of the letter sent by Syria’s envoy to the U.N. Bashar al-Jaafari on behalf of his country to the United Nations and its secretary general Ban Ki-moon, in regard to accusing the Movement of harboring what he called ‘terrorist elements’ from the al-Qaida and Muslim Brotherhood organizations who are seeking to undermine Kofi Annan’s plan,” the movement said in a statement.

Shelling between the rival Tripoli neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen on Friday left three people wounded, a security official and hospital sources told Agence France Presse.

The security official said at least four shells and grenades fell on the two districts in early evening.

Former prime minister Saad Hariri on Friday responded to Speaker Nabih Berri’s recent call for national dialogue, saying he welcomes “the principle of dialogue” but noting that it is “unacceptable” to turn dialogue over Hizbullah’s arms into dialogue over the latest unrest in Tripoli.

“We welcome the principle of dialogue and the call for dialogue; however, we remind that our permanent stance is: We were not the ones who withdrew from the national dialogue, and we demand its resumption on the bases that were agreed upon, and on the items that were included on its agenda,” said Hariri in a statement.

Colonel Riad al-Asaad, chief of the rebel Free Syrian Army, on Friday accused Arab Democratic Party official Rifaat Eid of “conspiring against the Lebanese state and inviting a foreign Arab army to occupy its North.”

“His remarks do not only disparage the Lebanese state’s prestige, but also the country’s dignity and the dignity of every Lebanese citizen, because Eid is neither a political analyst nor a media analyst, but rather the head of a licensed and armed Lebanese party,” said Asaad in a statement.