NICOSIA, Feb 15 (AFP) - A group calling itself Al-Qaeda organization in Greater Syria denied Islamist militants were involved in the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, in a statement posted Tuesday on the Internet.
"The attempt by the side which executed (the murder) to cast the blame on jihadi and salafi currents ... amounts to slander," said a statement signed by the group, posted on an Islamist website and reported by Al-Jazeera television.
The statement, whose authenticity could not be confirmed, blamed "the Israeli, Syrian or Lebanese intelligence services" for Hariri's killing in a massive bomb blast in Beirut on Monday.
It came after a previously unknown Islamist group calling itself An-Nosra wal Jihad fi Bilad al-Sham (Victory and Jihad in Greater Syria) claimed responsibility for the assassination.
That claim was made in a videotape aired by Al-Jazeera on Monday, in which a man alleged the group carried out what it called a suicide attack because of Hariri's close ties with the Saudi regime.
The Lebanese opposition has put the blame for the murder squarely on the Syrian regime, whose dominant role in Lebanon's affairs was opposed by Hariri, who was killed along with 14 other people when a huge explosion ripped through his motorcade on the Beirut seafront.
02/15/2005 20:58 GMT - AFP