Hizbullah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem on Sunday hailed the army for “protecting the Lebanese border” and rejected alleged efforts to transform Lebanon into a launchpad for settling political scores.

During a ceremony held in the Ghobeiri neighborhood of Beirut’s southern suburbs, Qassem “saluted the Lebanese army that is safeguarding the Lebanese border, particularly in the northern areas.”

Major-General Paolo Serra, Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), on Sunday stressed that U.N. peacekeepers will continue to fully cooperate with the Lebanese army and the local authorities, calling on everyone to benefit from the calm the South has been enjoying.

Serra noted that the past five years were the calmest for southern Lebanon.

A Syrian kidnapped in the Bekaa town of Taanayel was set free at dawn Sunday for the purpose of providing the abductees with a ransom in return for the release of his two brothers and their employee, the National News Agency reported.

The four men - brothers Osama, Imad and Hisham Abdul Raouf and their employee Khaled al-Hamadeh - were kidnapped at gunpoint in Taanayel on Saturday night as they were heading to the Masnaa border crossing following a two-day visit to Lebanon.

Several residents of Tyre blocked on Sunday the road at the southern coastal city’s entrance to protest electricity cuts but the army later reopened it, the National News Agency reported.

NNA said the residents held a sit-in outside the Electricite du Liban building at the city’s northern entrance and hoisted banners against “the policy of rationing and corruption at the energy ministry.”

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri voiced his support for Syria's uprising and urged Muslims in several countries, including Lebanon, to come to the aid of Syrian rebels confronting President Bashar Assad's forces.

"I appeal to every Muslim and every free, honorable one in Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, to rise to help his brothers in Syria with all that he can," Zawahiri said in a new video message released on jihadist Internet forums, U.S. monitors SITE Intelligence said on Sunday.

A cautious calm prevailed in the northern port city of Tripoli on Sunday after two days of heavy gunbattles between two neighborhoods left at least three people dead and 23 injured.

Media reports said there was no breach of the ceasefire that was reached on Saturday between the rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh, which is Sunni, and the dominant Alawite Jabal Mohsen.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has reportedly asked Premier Najib Miqati that Lebanon not reject a proposal made by his country to form a "Friends of Syria" group.

During a meeting they held in Paris on Friday, Juppe said Lebanon shouldn’t reject the idea during the meeting of Arab League foreign ministers that will be held in Cairo on Sunday, French official sources told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour rejected to be a false witness in the meetings of Arab foreign ministers, warning that Lebanon would be harmed if Syria was engulfed by fire.

In an interview with the Kuwaiti al-Rai daily published Sunday, Mansour said: “If we have remarks then we will say them boldly particularly if that decision would threaten the security and stability of Syria.”

Four gunmen intercepted on Saturday a car that entered Lebanon through the border and kidnapped three Syrian nationals in the Bekaa town of Taanayel, according to the National News Agency.

The Syrian nationals were traveling in a Jeep Mazda holding a Syrian license plate when four masked, armed men forcibly removed them from the car and kidnapped them to an unknown area.

A ceasefire was announced on Saturday between the rival Tripoli neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen under the army’s sponsorship after fierce clashes killed and wounded a number of civilians and troops.

The Lebanese army is deployed on the outskirts of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tebbaneh, namely near Syria Street which separates the rival neighborhoods.