Syrian President Bashar Assad voiced hope on Friday that the next Lebanese president would support the resistance axis, considering that his country and Hizbullah are united and share the same fate.

“We are interested in the opinions of the upcoming Lebanese president and to what he could offer the axis of the resistance, which is the basic criterion for us,” Assad was quoted as saying by his visitors.

The Lebanese army heavily deployed on Friday in the northern city of Tripoli as intermittent gunfire injure three people, including a soldier, in the area a day after clashes erupted between rival neighborhoods.

The state-run National News Agency reported that the army fortified its posts and deployed heavily in various areas in Tripoli, in particular, in Syria street that separates the rival districts of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen.

President Michel Suleiman said on Friday that Hizbullah's involvement in battles in Syria weakened it, stressing that any endeavors to extend his tenure don't serve the national interest.

“The March 8 and 14 alliances have erred against me and they have both played with the nerves of the Lebanese people,” Suleiman said in an interview with the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa newspaper to be published tomorrow.

Syria's exiled opposition will be barred from a presidential election to be held before July, virtually ensuring Bashar Assad's return to office three years into an uprising against his family's four-decade rule.

Saturday marks the third anniversary of the revolt, which began as peaceful protests calling for democratic change but deteriorated into an insurgency and then civil war after the regime brutally cracked down on dissent.

Syria's civil war has forced more than nine million people from their homes, creating the world's largest displaced population, the U.N. said on Friday, describing the continuing conflict as "unconscionable.”

"It is unconscionable that a humanitarian catastrophe of this scale is unfolding before our eyes with no meaningful progress to stop the bloodshed," U.N. refugee chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

The international mediator on Syria told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that Damascus was delaying efforts to resume Geneva talks to end the three-year-old civil war, diplomats said.

U.N. and Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said the government was engaged in "delaying tactics" and that any re-election of President Bashar Assad would complicate mediation efforts.

The Lebanese Army said on Thursday that security measures undertaken by it reduced the occurrence of suicide attacks in the country and led to the arrest of prominent fugitives.

“The intensified security measure undertaken by the army units across the country reduced significantly the occurrence car bombings,” the army said in a communique issued by the army command.

A would-be immigrant died and three others were missing on Thursday after their boat sank near Turkey in an attempted crossing of the Aegean Sea, the Greek coastguard said.

The accident occurred in Turkish waters near the Greek island of Rhodes.

The Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc stressed on Thursday that the new government should protect Lebanon from the impact of the Syrian crisis and be able to stage the presidential elections in May.

It said after its weekly meeting: “The policy statement must not ignore the Baabda Declaration.”

The United Nations on Wednesday appealed to warring factions in Syria's bloody civil war to protect the country's cultural heritage, warning of widespread looting and damage at historical sites caught up in the conflict.

A joint statement from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, UNESCO director Irina Bokova and international mediator on Syria Lakhdar Brahimi called on all sides to "halt immediately all destruction of Syrian heritage, and to save Syria's rich social mosaic and cultural heritage."