BEIRUT - The ambassador of Saudi Arabia, a leading supporter of Lebanon's beleaguered Western-backed government, has left Beirut in the face of attack warnings, a senior Lebanese official said on Saturday.

Abdel Aziz Khoja left on August 17 after the embassy formally notified the Lebanese foreign ministry of a "threat of attack against the ambassador's residence, the embassy or other Saudi interests in Lebanon," the official said.

The Saudi embassy declined all comment but Khoja told the Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat daily that "there were threats against Saudi embassy and against my person."

The ambassador had already been threatened four or five times in the past, the London-based paper added.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is a key financier of Lebanon and a staunch backer of the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.

Khoja had been involved in efforts to broker an end to the rift with pro-Syrian factions that has paralysed Siniora's legislative agenda.

Early last week, he held talks with the pro-Syrian speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, who has refused to recognize the Siniora government's legitimacy since six pro-Syrian ministers quit last November.

Lebanon has been hit by a wave of attacks in recent years targeting anti-Syrian politicians, most infamously the 2005 murder of five-time prime minister Rafiq Hariri, a billionaire businessman who held joint Lebanese and Saudi citizenship. -AFP