Unknown assailants opened fire on Tuesday at a car on Khalde highway south of Beirut, killing one person and injuring another.

According to the Traffic Management Center, unknown gunmen in a Jeep Envoy opened fire at a white Renault Rapid carrying the license plate 259312/M.

Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has personally telephoned Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun to resolve the last knot preventing the formation of the new all-embracing government, al-Liwaa newspaper reported on Tuesday.

But Aoun's stance on the rejection of the 8-8-8 formula and the rotation of portfolios among sects has remained so far unchanged.

Sheikh Omar al-Atrash, who is allegedly linked to the recent attacks in Beirut's southern suburbs, had confessed to moving two explosive-rigged cars to Beirut and his prior knowledge to the suicide attacks targeting Dahiyeh, a Hizbullah stronghold.

According to al-Akhbar newspaper published on Tuesday, al-Atrash, who was arrested by the Army last week, testified that he transported people and cars from the Bekaa border town of Arsal to Beirut and handed them over to culprits, however, he didn't know the details of their scheme.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov is scheduled to arrive in Lebanon in the upcoming days, media reports said on Tuesday.

According to al-Liwaa, the Russian official will stress during talks with senior officials the importance of forming a new cabinet.

Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam denied that he was threatening to form a fait accompli government, saying the time factor had been threatening him along with the political factions in the country.

“It's not me who is threatening,” Salam told al-Akhbar daily in remarks published on Tuesday.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Monday lauded Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif's call for the withdrawal of all foreign fighters from Syria, urging Lebanese leaders to rise above petty details and form an all-embracing cabinet.

Following a 2-hour meeting at the Iranian embassy in Beirut with Ambassador Ghazanfar Roknabadi, which was followed by a dinner banquet, Jumblat welcomed “the breakthrough that happened after the major framework agreement between the Islamic republic and and Western powers.”

The army reportedly made public on Monday a list of eight cars that “could be used in terrorist acts,” demanding security checkpoints to seize these vehicles.

LBCI television broadcast what it called a “security” list circulated by the army's Intelligence Bureau that identify these 8 cars.

Unknown assailants on Monday assaulted a Syrian man who is a resident of the Tripoli neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen.

“Syrian national Ahmed Ibrahim Ali was assaulted in the al-Qobbeh neighborhood” in Tripoli, state-run National News Agency reported, noting that the man was born in 1989 in the northern city.

The Lebanese army has arrested a Syrian young woman who was videotaping a number of sites in the vicinity of the defense ministry building in Yarze, including the house of Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji, An Nahar newspaper reported Monday.

“The young woman lives in a building near the ministry and she used to practice jogging on daily basis and under the eyes of soldiers,” An Nahar said.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon resumed on Monday its hearing sessions in The Hague, as Khaled Toubaili, a firefighter that was involved in the rescuing operations on February 14, 2005, gave his testimony.

Toubaili, a firefighter at the Bashura sector in the Beirut Fire Department, recounted the events he experienced on the day of former premier Rafik Hariri's assassination.