Head of the Mustaqbal bloc MP Fouad Saniora stressed on Friday that the March 14 forces will remain committed to the authority of the state throughout all of its endeavors, while highlighting the values of democracy and dialogue.

He said: “Our hand is extended to the other camp only under the authority of the state.”

The March 14 forces commemorated on Friday the ninth anniversary of the “Independence Uprising” that saw the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon in 2005 by holding a ceremony that emphasized the importance of the Lebanese state and rejected Hizbullah's actions.

March 14 General Secretariat coordinator Fares Soaid said at the ceremony: “The March 14 forces will remain united and not one of its parties will be victorious over the other.”

In the heart of Syria's devastated city of Homs, once hailed as the "capital of the revolution," President Bashar Assad looks down from a banner calling for his reelection.

"Because you are a symbol of our victory and our resistance, we implore you to be a candidate for the presidency," reads the caption beneath the smiling Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for more than four decades.

Tripoli-based Salafist leader Sheikh Salem al-Rafehi stressed Friday that the northern city's Islamists will not hesitate to go to jihad, or holy war, in support of the regime-besieged Syrian town of Yabrud.

“A lot of those who are collecting extortions in the city are still on the loose and a lot of criminals are still at large, while the free men were arrested, such as Omar al-Homsi, Sheikh Omar al-Atrash, Dr. Abdul Nasser Shatah and others,” Rafehi said outside al-Salam Mosque in Tripoli, after the director of his office Jalal Kalash was arrested at the Rafik Hariri International Airport.

The U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, will travel to close Damascus ally Iran for meetings with senior officials, Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said Friday.

"Lakhdar Brahimi will come to Tehran on Sunday afternoon," the Mehr news agency quoted Abdollahian as saying.

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg appeared in a London court on Friday charged with providing terrorist training and funding terrorism in Syria.

Begg appeared at the Old Bailey, England's central criminal court, via videolink from the top-security Belmarsh prison in southeast London.

Bombings in and around Baghdad on Friday, including blasts near two markets, killed seven people, the latest in a year-long surge in violence that authorities have failed to quell.

The bloodshed, at its highest level since 2008, came a day after a suicide car bomb went off in the middle of a wedding party convoy in the western town of Rawa, killing 15 people, including women and children.

The army arrested on Friday a Lebanese national on charges of smuggling Syrians into Lebanon, reported the National News Agency.

It said that it arrested Ahmed H. at the Ain al-Shaab checkpoint in the Bekaa town of Arsal.

Turkey warned on Friday that it would retaliate "in kind" if a historic memorial that it controls inside war-torn Syria comes under attack.

"Any kind of attack, be it from the regime or radical groups ... will face retaliation in kind and Turkey will take any measures to defend its homeland without any hesitation," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.

Security forces have broken up a Spanish and Moroccan network suspected of sending jihadist fighters to battle Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, arresting seven suspects, Madrid said Friday.

Spain's government said it was the "most important" cell it had detected sending jihadists to Syria and other conflict zones.