The military prosecutor charged on Tuesday Islamist cleric Omar Bakri, who was arrested last month, with belonging to terrorist organizations and for plotting to establish an Islamic state in Lebanon.

The state-run National News Agency said the charges issued by Judge Saqr Saqr against Bakri include belonging to armed terrorist groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)  and al-Qaida, and working to establish an Islamic state.

Turkey added al-Qaida's franchise in neighboring Syria to a list of terrorist organisations on Tuesday, in a sign of the country's growing concern over the rise of radicals across the border.

Although other jihadist groups fighting in Syria's civil war claim to be inspired by al-Qaida, the Al-Nusra Front is the only one to be officially sanctioned by the group's leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen dismissed presidential elections in Syria as a "farce" Tuesday, saying they did not meet international standards.

"The Syrian presidential election is a farce," Rasmussen said as he went into a NATO defence ministers meeting.

World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim was in Beirut on Tuesday for talks with Lebanese officials on the country's economic situation and mainly a proposal to fund an electricity project, which was welcomed by Prime Minister Tammam Salam.

Al-Liwaa newspaper quoted sources as saying that Salam reacted positively to the funding that is expected to have low interests.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) slammed a decision by the Lebanese authorities to ban Syrian refugees from heading to their country or lose their status, rejecting to hand over to the state the complete data of the refugees.

According to As Safir newspaper, the UNHCR complained in a meeting with Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas that the decision is “negative.”

The Syrian Embassy in Lebanon rejected in a letter of protest the measures taken by the government against the Syrian refugees, As Safir newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Diplomatic sources told the newspaper that the “retaliatory measures” taken by the Lebanese state increased “sympathy” with the Syrian regime.

Syrian refugees believe the presidential election in their country will be "illegitimate," according to a poll released on Monday in Amman by an Arab think tank on the eve of the vote.

The study conducted by the Doha-based Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) showed that 78 percent of Syrian refugees in the region believe the election on Tuesday will be "illegitimate," while 17 percent said the vote will be "legitimate."

The conflict in Syria has cost Lebanon $7.5 billion as it struggles to cope with hosting more than a million refugees from the neighboring country, according to World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim.

"We estimated last summer that the impact of the crisis on Lebanon was $7.5 billion," Kim said late on Sunday in the Saudi city of Jeddah, which he visited in the first stop of a regional tour.

Syria geared up Monday for an election expected to keep Bashar Assad as president but derided as a "farce" and only staged in regime-held parts of the war-ravaged country.

Officially, 15 million people are eligible to vote in a country bled dry by the three-year conflict that flared from a brutal crackdown on peaceful protests calling for democratic reforms.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday warned regional countries of the "high price" they would eventually pay for supporting rebels fighting against Tehran's key ally Syria.

Shiite Iran is a staunch supporter of President Bashar Assad's regime in its struggle against mostly Sunni rebels backed by Arab nations and Western powers.