Published yesterday (updated) 10/08/2010 18:22

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) --

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Monday that Israel attempted to convince the late Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri that the Shiite movement was plotting his assassination.

Nasrallah said Israel began the scheme on 13 September 1993, adding that Hezbollah had located a Lebanese spy for Israel in 1996 who compiled information on the Shiite movement, and had access to Hariri's convoy.

"We now discover that Israel has a large number of spies working in several institutions in Lebanon," Nasrallah said, referring to recent wave of arrests of suspected collaborators, largely in Lebanon's telecommunications industry.

He added that Israel sought "any opportunity" to attack Lebanon.

On Sunday, Hezobllah spokesman Ibrahim Mousawi told Ma'an that Nasrallah would evidence implicating Israel in Hariri's assassination, which he described as "comprehensive, revealing conclusive information."

The news conference follows mounting political tension in Lebanon after reports suggesting that the UN tribunal set-up to investigate the 2005 car bombing which killed Hariri, would implicate Hezbollah in the hit.

As a result, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and Saudi Arabian King Abdullah met in July with Lebanon’s President Michel Suleiman in an effort to diffuse the mounting political tension over possible indictments over the assassination.

Nasrallah: Israeli agent part of hit on PM

Published Monday 09/08/2010 (updated) 10/08/2010 09:34

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) --

An Israeli agent told former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri years before his assassination that Hezbollah was trying to kill him, the leader of the Shiite movement said Monday.

In a live address, Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah said Israeli operatives sought to frighten the late Lebanese premier with news of a false plot on his life as part of a larger effort to drive Syria, which backs Hezbollah, out of Lebanon.

The address, carried live on Hezbollah's Al-Manar broadcaster, was spliced with several video clips which Nasrallah said showed captured Israeli agents confessing to playing a role in the Hariri assassination. Al-Manar also broadcasted footage it said was taken by Israeli aerial drones scouting the spot where Hariri died.

Israeli officials, who do not usually comment on intelligence allegations, spoke out in advance.

"They are looking for a way out," an official in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office said a day before the address. "When they start casting for straws like this, it just shows the degree of pressure they are under."

"This is completely ridiculous and ... everyone knows it," the official told The Jerusalem Post newspaper.

A UN special tribunal set up to investigate the assassination is expected to blame Hezbollah. Reports suggest that the tribunal will announce its findings before the end of 2010.