Beirut - Lebanon's Prime Minister Fouad Seniora denounced Monday the US helicopter-borne commando raid in Syria which allegedly targeted the al-Qaeda-linked insurgents streaming into Iraq.

According to Syria, eight people, including a married couple and their four children were killed in the raid on a building in the village of Al-Sukkariya, some eight kilometres from the country's border with Iraq.

"The raid by US helicopters on Syrian territory ... constitutes a violation of Syrian sovereignty and thus is a dangerous, unacceptable attack that we condemn," a statement from Seniora's office said.

Beirut - Two years after it decided to provide loans to those seeking plastic surgery, a Lebanese bank is expanding into loans for fertility treatment.

The loan program, a first anywhere, has attracted a fair amount of attention, even though the question of infertility has long been a social taboo in Lebanon and across the Middle East.

"We have received, since the billboards were hanged across Beirut in mid August, between 200-250 calls per day from interested customers," said Mahir Mezher, head of marketing and the campaign's creator at Lebanon's First National Bank (FNB).

Beirut  - The Lebanese Shiite militant movement Hezbollah denied on Friday rumors that its leader Hassan Nasrallah had been poisoned.

"It's a fabricated story - only rumors," Galeb Abu Zainab, a member of Hezbollah's political bureau was quoted as saying.

On Wednesday, the Iraqi website Almalaf reported that Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah had been poisoned last week and that Iranian doctors had been rushed to Lebanon to save his life.

It cited undisclosed sources as saying Israel was responsible for the assassination attempt.

Beirut- Lebanon's Shiite movement Hezbollah denied on Thursday any links with a drug-ring captured in Colombia and said such reports are aimed at defaming the image of the movement.

"This is part of a Zionist campaign against the movement to defame its picture and they are based on pure lies," said Nawaf al Mussawi, Hezbollah's foreign affairs officer.

Mussawi met with the Colombian Ambassador to Lebanon, Georgina Mallat and handed her a condemnation letter, which stated that Hezbollah "does not participate in outlawed missions."

Beirut- Three Lebanese soldiers and a firefighter were injured battling forest fires in the Chouf mountains southeast of Beirut Tuesday, a civil defence official said.

"There are fires in Dibbiyeh, the area of Aley, Sirjbal and another in al-Zaaruriyeh," the official said. Dozens of families were forced to leave their homes in the Dibbiyeh area, witnesses said.

"Around 600 hectares were destroyed in the area of Dibbiyeh alone," added the official. He said the fire started on Monday but firefighters had difficulties reaching the rugged mountainsides.