Caretaker Prime Minister Mikati has reportedly been targeted for assassination by a suicide bomber from the Khaled bin al-Walid Brigades of the Islamic Front; some security officials dismissed the report, but security for Mikati was stepped up in Beirut and Tripoli. Hezbollah MP Ali Fayyad said the government must confront takfiri groups that conduct terrorist attacks. Ziad al-Loukeh, a field commander in the Sunni suburb of Bab al-Tabbaneh in Tripoli, has urged men in the area to go fight in Homs. Lebanon’s security head said Russia has been involved in negotiations for the release of two archbishops kidnapped in 2013 in Syria, and noted that Qatar has offered to pay any costs, but said so far the kidnappers have not issued any demands; he also said the case of 13 kidnapped Syrian nuns “will reach a satisfactory result.”
