Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun announced on Friday that newly-appointed Labor Minister Salim Jreissati had become the newest members of the Change and Reform bloc, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday.

Jreissati meanwhile said that a mission to achieve change and reform “can be achieved without creating disputes.”

Hizbullah expanded its telecommunications network in several towns in the district of Zahle after its project failed in the Metn town of Tarshish, highly informed sources told al-Mustaqbal newspaper.

The sources said Thursday that the installment was made in the towns of Riyaq, Hawsh Hala and Hay al-Sellom several days ago.

A phone call about the presence of a bomb in the vicinity of Khouri Hospital in Zahle turned out to be a hoax after security forces thoroughly combed the area on Wednesday, state-run National News Agency reported.

“The emergency room doctor at Khouri Hospital in Zahle received a phone call about the presence of a bomb in the hospital’s vicinity,” NNA said.

An Internal Security Forces member and a man wanted for the death of several soldiers were killed in a gunfight in the Bekaa town of Majdal Anjar on Sunday night.

An Nahar newspaper said Monday that an ISF Information Branch patrol chased Darwish Khanjar and his companion after they robbed Suzan Jebara of her Honda CRV at gunpoint.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has said that Syria was most likely behind the abduction of seven Estonian tourists and blamed the failure of Premier-designate Najib Miqati to form a government on divisions among the March 8 forces.

“When we see that four, five days ago the Syrian brothers started telling the Estonian government through mediators that they can help in this, and crossing that with other almost confirmed information that they (Estonian hostages) are now in Syria or at the very least if they were not in Syria then the key to the hand (that is holding them) is in Syria … the issue becomes clear,” Geagea told The Daily Star in an interview published Wednesday.

High-ranking security sources have expressed fear that Wael Abbas, the ringleader of the cell that kidnapped the seven Estonians, might have handed over the hostages to another network.

The sources told An Nahar daily on Friday that Abbas could have also transferred the cyclists, who were kidnapped near Zahle’s industrial zone on March 23, “to outside the Lebanese territories,” in reference to Syria.

Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi has unveiled that the Intelligence Bureau has so far arrested four people involved in the kidnapping of the seven Estonian tourists in the Bekaa Valley last week.

In remarks to An Nahar daily on Wednesday, Rifi said that the four men are suspected of providing the kidnappers with the van and a stolen Mercedes to carry out the abduction operation.

The blast at the Syriac Orthodox church in Zahle went off after a call was made to a mobile phone attached to the detonation fuse, the first time a bomb has been detonated via cell phone in Lebanon, An Nahar daily reported Tuesday.

The newspaper said the investigation into the bombing on Sunday revealed that the culprits linked the detonation fuse of the 2 kilogram-TNT device to a phone that has a SIM card. Its remains were found near the church.

A bomb targeted a Syriac Orthodox church in the eastern city of Zahle’s industrial district at dawn Sunday, causing heavy material damage.

The National News Agency said the 2-kilogram TNT explosives were planted outside the church’s doorstep and controlled by a mobile phone.

The kidnapping of seven Estonians brought back fears about the resumption of abductions that were common during the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war amid reports that the men could have been snatched to be used as a bargaining chip for a Palestinian recently arrested in Ukraine.

The Estonian tourists cycling in the eastern Bekaa Valley were kidnapped on Wednesday by armed men.