Lebanon security storm Hariri bomb claimer's home

BEIRUT - Lebanese security forces have stormed the Beirut home of a man they identified as a Palestinian who appeared in a video claiming responsibility for the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri.

A Lebanese security forces statement said Ahmed Tayseer Abu Adas was not in the house. He had earlier appeared in a video aired by Al Jazeera claiming responsibility killing Hariri and calling him a Saudi agent.

Authorities were investigating whether he had blown himself up in the car bombing that killed Hariri or whether he was an accomplice in plotting the attack, the statement said.

"Computer equipment and tapes were seized from his house and some documents were confiscated for investigation," it said. Early investigations had shown he was a member of an Islamic school of thought known as Wahhabism -- an austere form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia.

Western governments and moderate Muslim clerics have said this brand of faith, which rules all aspects of life, was fomenting extremism.

The tape broadcast by Al Jazeera showed Abu Adas sitting in front of a black flag carrying the name "Group for Advocacy and Holy War in the Levant".

He called Hariri a Saudi agent and said the attack was also "in revenge for the pious martyrs killed by security forces of the Saudi regime" and used a religious term for Saudi Arabia often used by al Qaeda militants fighting Riyadh's US-allied government since 2003.

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

- REUTERS