Amman - Lebanese President Michel Suleiman arrived in Amman Sunday for a two-day state visit, the first to Jordan by a Lebanese head of state in nine years.

Beirut - The United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) have taken extra precautionary measures after receiving threats against UN peacekeepers, a local Lebanese radio said Thursday.

Extraordinary security measures have been carried out in southern Lebanon after a bomb was discovered in the Wassani area on December 7, according to Voice of Lebanon radio.

Lebanese security sources were quoted as saying that UNIFIL has warned its patrols against passing near the southern Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh when crossing the costal highway from Sidon to Beirut.

Beirut - Visiting former US President Jimmy Carter said Thursday during his meeting with Lebanese parliamentarians and politicians that he would study the possibility of sending a Carter Centre representative to monitor the 2009 elections if Lebanese authorities agreed.

"The inspectors would not intervene in the electoral process, but would try to implement the electoral law," Carter told Lebanese MPs at the parliament house in downtown Beirut.

Beirut - Officials from the radical Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah have refused to meet former US president Jimmy Carter, who is on a two-day visit to Lebanon, Carter's spokesman Rick Jafculca said Wednesday.

Carter requested the meeting with the Iran-backed movement, which is listed as a terrorist group by Washington, as part of a visit to Lebanon to assess whether his Carter Centre will monitor a legislative election next year.

Beirut - Sunni fundamentalist group Fatah al-Islam said its leader may have been "captured or killed" and it has named his successor, local radios reported Wednesday.

Shaker al-Abssi and two other members of the group were ambushed in Syria while trying to meet with other Islamic militants from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Voice of Lebanon radio station quoted a Fatah al- Islam statement as saying.

The three were either captured or killed during the gunfight with members of the Syrian security forces, the radio said.

Abu Mohamad Awad had been named to succeed Abssi at the head of Fatah al-Islam, the group said.

Beirut  - Thirty cheerful clowns from Germany, Italy, Morocco and Lebanon cheered the Lebanese public Tuesday by dancing in the rain in the capital Beirut.

Wearing rainbow-colored wigs and red plastic noses, the clowns put on a show in the main shopping district of Hamra street, bringing cheer to Lebanese children on the second day of the Muslim al-Adha holiday.

Some clowns walked on stilts as others danced, juggled, blew up balloons and took pictures with the crowd that gathered to watch the show in the pouring rain.

"It is meant to introduce street performances and comic relief as a way to deal with tense situations and conflict," said Tonnie Selwood Choeiri, one of the organizers.