Al-Mustaqbal movement Secretary-General Ahmed Hariri confirmed that former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s convoy was closely monitored after a report said that the Syrian regime was planning to assassinate him.

“The security caution taken by Hariri is very serious,” Ahmed Hariri told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in remarks published Sunday.

Sources escorting former Prime Minister Saad Hariri confirmed that he is in Paris along with his family, An Nahar newspaper reported on Saturday.

The sources refused to comment on reports that Hariri had received threats against his life.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati, who on Thursday entered the Grand Serail for the first time in six years, reiterated that his cabinet will not confront the international community.

“Lebanon is not in a confrontation with the Western community nor the international community,” Miqati told pan-Arab radio station Sawa.

The March 14 forces vowed on Wednesday to confront alleged attempts by the new Lebanese cabinet to take Lebanon back to the era of Syrian hegemony and integrate the country’s institutions into Hizbullah’s statelet.

The general-secretariat of the coalition said after its weekly meeting that it would prevent Premier Najib Miqati’s government to “return Lebanon to the dark stage that the Cedar Revolution liberated” after ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination in February 2005.

The new cabinet’s policy statement is expected to remain committed to some of the major clauses of Saad Hariri’s ministerial statement including the right of "Lebanon, its government, its people, its army and its resistance" to liberate all Lebanese territory.

An Nahar daily said Wednesday that Najib Miqati’s new cabinet would also commit itself to international resolutions and the protocol signed between the Lebanese government and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon that will try ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s suspected assassins.

U.S. sources have informed caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri about a plan to assassinate him in Beirut, “which was supposed to be carried out in May,” Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai reported.

In a report published Monday, the newspaper said the U.S. warnings to Hariri “coincided with similar warnings from the Saudi and French authorities.”

High-ranking March 14 sources have said that the March 8 coalition backed by Hizbullah was seeking to keep the political vacuum in Lebanon in an effort to help the Syrian regime at the security level.

The sources have expressed fears that a decision to keep the vacuum was aimed at “keeping the freedom of movement on the ground in case the situation in Syria deteriorated to the level that requires a security support from Lebanon.”

MP Ahmed Karami has unveiled that he told his ally Premier-designate Najib Miqati that he should be a priority in getting a cabinet seat after Hizbullah and the Amal movement backed bringing Faisal Karami to the new government.

The lawmaker told Kuwait’s al-Seyassah newspaper in remarks published Sunday that “Miqati doesn’t have a problem in giving a seat to Faisal Karami.”

Hizbullah has officially informed resigned Minister Adnan Sayyed Hussein that it was backing off from its promise to allot to him a portfolio in the new cabinet, al-Mustaqbal daily reported Sunday.

The newspaper said that the Shiite party had promised Sayyed Hussein to either give him the foreign affairs or information portfolio when he announced his resignation from Caretaker Premier Saad Hariri’s government in January.

Premier-designate Najib Miqati told An Nahar newspaper on Saturday that he forgives caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri for treating him inappropriately after his appointment as PM-designate in January.

“I forgive him (Hariri) for how he treated me, and I hope that he recognizes in the future that these actions didn’t suit his position and I didn’t deserve it,” he said.