BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati will meet Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Saturday, two Lebanese sources said, becoming the first head of government to visit Syria's capital since the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

The events that have unfolded in Lebanon between the election of a new president of the Republic on Thursday 9 January and the appointment of a new prime minister on Monday 13, constitute a major upheaval in the country’s political situation.

Syria was the dominant power in Lebanon for three decades under the Assad family, with President Hafez al-Assad intervening in its 1975-1990 civil war and his son Bashar al-Assad only withdrawing Syria's troops in 2005 following mass protests triggered by the assassination of Lebanese ex-Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.

Intelligence officials in Syria’s new de facto government say they have thwarted a plan by the Islamic State group to set off a bomb at a Shiite shrine in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati arrived in Damascus Saturday in the first such visit since before civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, an AFP journalist reported.

Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has said Beirut and Damascus will work together to secure their land borders, as well as to delineate both land and sea borders. In the first trip ...

Lebanon's Prime Minister Ziad Makary will visit Damascus "soon", the information minister announced Tuesday, in the first such visit by the country's leadership since Islamist-led rebels seized

Syria's new ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa and Lebanon's prime minister vowed on Saturday to build lasting ties after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Sharaa said the new Syria would "stay at equal distance

Najib Mikati’s visit, the first in 15 years, comes amid pressure in Lebanon to release Islamists imprisoned during the civil war and just after the election of President Joseph Aoun.

The fall of the Syrian regime and loss of Iranian influence opens the door for the Lebanese to finally take their fate into their own hands.

Lebanon’s Mikati and Syria’s al-Sharaa discuss relations, including smuggling between countries and border challenges.

NEWS ANALYSIS. Between relief and apprehension, Lebanon is concerned about local repercussions of Syria's change of leadership.