An alleged plan by Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun to visit Saudi Arabia left the Lebanese media guessing whether such a trip will take place anytime soon.

Rabieh has not yet confirmed or denied that Aoun could make such a visit for talks with top Saudi officials.

Officials close to al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri and caretaker Energy Minister Jebran Bassil have denied that any meeting has taken place between them in Dubai.

The officials, who were not identified, told LBCI TV network on Sunday night that no such meeting was held between Hariri and Bassil.

A Shiite citizen of mainly Sunni Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 30 years in jail for violence and protesting against Riyadh's 2011 intervention in neighboring Bahrain, media reported Monday.

The defendant, whose name was not given, was found guilty of taking part in protests in Qatif in Eastern Province and calling for the withdrawal of Saudi forces sent to Bahrain.

President Michel Suleiman revealed on Saturday that he would meet with al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri during his visit to Saudi Arabia early next week.

Suleiman, who travels to Riyadh on a one-day official visit on Monday, is scheduled to hold talks with King Abdullah.

Pilgrims in their hundreds of thousands thronged Mount Arafat in Saudi Arabia from early Monday for the climax of the annual hajj pilgrimage, arriving on foot, by train or in vehicles.

Officials said they expected around 1.5 million pilgrims to descend on the site, where later in the day they will perform prayers and listen to the annual sermon from Saudi top cleric Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh.

Two Saudi National Guard soldiers have been killed in an accidental blast during a training mission east of Riyadh, state news agency SPA reported.

The accident, in which two other soldiers were hurt, took place Tuesday during "a regular training mission using live ammunition," said National Guard ministry spokesman Colonel Khaled al-Muqbel.

Unknown attackers tried to set fire to a religious police center west of the Saudi capital Riyadh in an "intentional" attack, causing no casualties, local media reported on Sunday.

The notorious body, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, is charged with ensuring compliance with the kingdom's strict interpretation of Islamic morality, but is often accused of abuses.

France on Sunday called on Saudi Arabia and Qatar to help find a solution to the crisis in Egypt as it received senior diplomats from the two rival regional powers.

Qatar, considered an ally of ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, has strongly condemned the intervention by the authorities against the Islamist leader's supporters.

Three car bombs, including a suicide attack, killed at least four people on Sunday in disputed territory in northern Iraq where analysts fear tensions could trigger a full-blown conflict.

The unresolved row over the swathe of land, which Iraqi Kurdistan wants to incorporate into it's three-province autonomous region over Baghdad's objections, is cited by diplomats as among the biggest threats to Iraq's long-term stability.

Head of al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc ex-PM Fouad Saniora will head a delegation to Saudi Arabia on Saturday for talks with former PM Saad Hariri to brief him on the ongoing consultations among the parties affiliated in March 14 alliance.

According to al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Friday, Saniora and the accompanying delegation will discuss with Hariri, who is currently in Riyadh, the formation of the cabinet, the new electoral law and the critical situation the country is passing through.