Al Qaeda denies involvement in Hariri's death

DUBAI - A statement attributed to al Qaeda and posted on the Internet on Tuesday denied Islamists had killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, saying Lebanese, Syrian or Israeli intelligence were behind the attack.

The statement, signed by a hitherto unknown group calling itself the Al Qaeda Organisation in the Levant, was posted on an Islamist Web site often used by al Qaeda a day after another unknown Islamist group said it was behind the huge Beirut blast that killed Hariri.

The authenticity of the statement could not be immediately verified.

"Blaming the Jihadist and Salafist groups for what happened in Beirut is a complete fabrication," the statement said. "The priorities of the jihadist groups in the Levant are supporting our brethren in Iraq and Palestine, not blowing up cars.

"This is clearly an operation that was planned by a state intelligence agency ... and we blame either the Mossad, the Syrian regime or the Lebanese regime."

The Levant is the historical name for the region including today's Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.

Hariri, a billionaire who masterminded the rebuilding of Lebanon after a 1975-90 civil war, was killed on Monday, four months after he resigned as prime minister after disputes with Lebanon's main powerbroker Syria.

Hours after the attack, Al Jazeera television aired a video tape from an unknown Islamist group calling itself the Group for Advocacy and Holy War in the Levant which said it had killed Hariri because of his ties to Saudi Arabia.

Hariri had close ties to the kingdom, Osama bin Laden's birthplace, which has been battling al Qaeda for more than two years.

- REUTERS