(Reuters) – The United States delivered more than $25 million worth of military aid including heavy artillery to the Lebanese army on Sunday to help it fight jihadist groups which have repeatedly battled with security forces near the Syrian border.

The U.S. ambassador to Beirut, David Hale, said in a statement the weapons would be used to "defeat the terrorist and extremist threat from Syria".

"We are fighting the same enemy, so our support for you has been swift and continuous," Hale said at an event marking the delivery of the weapons in Beirut.

The Lebanese army has fought regular battles with armed groups including militants linked to Islamic State and the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front in areas near the Syrian border, most recently late last month when six soldiers were killed.

By Armin Rosen, Business Insider

Friday marked the death knell of the internationally-backed post-Arab Spring order in Yemen, whose parliament and government were finally dissolved by the Iranian-allied Houthi rebels who took over Sa’ana in late 2014.

The ousted president, Abd-Rabbouh Mansour Hadi, was a highly cooperative US counter-terror partner, and the UN had dispatched a special envoy entrusted with shepherding the country’s fragile transitional process. These efforts failed to prevent the full-on state collapse that Iranian-backed Houthi rebels finally completed on Friday.

But the biggest loser from the Yemeni government’s fall is Sa’ana’s wealthy, powerful, and perpetually insecure neighbor to the north: Saudi Arabia. In recent years, Saudi policy towards Yemen has been built around the need to stabilize the government in Sa’ana while sealing off the two countries’ over 1,000-long and minimally policed frontier.

(Reuters) – Lebanon has begun removing political posters and party banners from neighborhoods of the capital in a move to unify a country still divided from a civil war, following an agreement between the militant and political group Hezbollah and its rivals.

Beirut is fragmented into fiefdoms where political banners and photographs of dead fighters and warlords have marked territory controlled by various groups since the start of the civil war that raged from 1975 to 1990.

The poster ban was agreed by Lebanon’s main political groupings after gun battles, car bombs and skirmishes on the border with Syria highlighted the need for reconciliation.

  The Governor of Beirut ordered on Thursday the closure of the fish market in Karantina for not meeting health standards, three months after he gave similar instructions to shut the slaughterhouse in the same area for renovations. Governor Ziad Shebib visited the market and gave the fish traders until Friday to sell their catch. […]

  BEIRUT/TRIPOLI/SIDON: Municipality workers began removing political signage and party banners in Beirut and Tripoli Thursday, in line with an agreement reached during dialogue sessions between the Future Movement and Hezbollah to defuse sectarian tensions. Beirut Governor Ziad Chebib and political figures watched as the campaign for clearing the city from all political signs and […]

  A campaign to remove party banners and photos from Beirut and several cities was launched on Thursday, the result of talks between Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal Movement. The governor of Beirut, Ziad Shebib, told reporters that 90 percent of political slogans and posters have already been removed. “We will work from now on to make […]

  More than 12 people were injured on Wednesday morning when several military vehicles were involved in a pileup on the Antelias-Jal el-Dib highway, north of Beirut. The Traffic Management Center said five vehicles smashed into each other, leaving 13 people injured. TMC did not specify if the vehicles belonged to the army and if […]

  BEIRUT: Hooligans stormed the criminal court in the southern district of Nabatieh Wednesday, stealing confidential documents, cash and an assault rifle, security and judicial sources told The Daily Star. According to security sources, at least one gangster gained entry into the court through the back of the building. “Specific documents have been stolen, in […]

  The cabinet did not discuss the thorny issue of civil marriage during its session on Wednesday, the information minister announced, although more than 50 marriage contracts are awaiting approval at the Directorate General of Personal Status. Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq had on Tuesday declared that the issue would be discussed from outside the cabinet’s […]

  BEIRUT: Truck drivers observing an open-ended strike that disrupted work at the Beirut Port refused to suspend their protest until work on filling the port’s fourth basin is suspended as well, their syndicate said Tuesday. “We were solicited to suspend our strike, but after discussions among the syndicate officials, we decided unanimously to suspend […]