According to Voice of Israel radio, a court in Haifa sentenced a former Israeli Shin Bet intelligence officer and a retired Lebanese policeman to 18 and 15 years in prison today on charges of spying for the Lebanese government. The court ruled that the two had passed classified information to Lebanese intelligence which was later obtained by Syria. The two men, whose names have not been disclosed, were arrested in south Lebanon three years ago by Israeli agents.

A bomb exploded today in Achrafieh outside the office of George Foridos, a former special forces commander in the Christian Kata'ib militia during the Lebanese civil war. Investigators said that the explosive charge contained 300 grams of TNT. No one was injured.

In a statement released today, National Bloc leader Raymond Edde said that he would return from exile "to lead my party's lists of candidates" in next year's parliamentary elections only if all foreign forces withdraw from Lebanon. Edde has lived in Paris since Syrian troops entered Lebanon in 1976.

A hand grenade exploded tonight outside Saint Michael's church in the Qobbeh neighborhood of Tripoli. No one was injured. The attack was the seventh bombing of a Lebanese Christian church over the last two months. In October, similar bombings were carried out against churches in Dekwaneh, Tarchich, Ainab and Assoun.

Ramadan Shalah, the leader of the militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad announced today that south Lebanon "is an open front to liberate Palestine" and vowed that declared that "our jihad will continue until its return." Last week, Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for attacks against Israeli and SLA forces in the security zone.

Maronite Christian Patriarch Butros Sfeir condemned the Syria and the Lebanese government today for failing to uphold the terms of the 1989 Taif Accord. "Lebanese are still classified as winners and losers (of the civil war)," Sfeir said, referring to the prosperity and political influence enjoyed by allies of Syria. He also criticized the government for refusing to investigate the disappearance of an estimated 17,000 people during the civil war and for imprisoning nearly all of the 220 members of the Israeli-allied South Lebanon Army (SLA) militia who surrendered in June.