DAMASCUS - The UN probe into the killing of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri is being led astray by false testimony, an official Syrian newspaper warned on Monday.

"It is clear that Lebanon and Syria are the targets of a grand plot given the latest information and the lies of which the head of the commission of inquiry, Detlev Mehlis, has been the victim," Ath-Thawra said.

"Mr Mehlis is going through a crisis... especially because of renegade soldier Mohammed Zuheir al-Saddiq's stories," it said.

The Syrian soldier, who is married to a Lebanese woman, is reported to have told Mehlis that he was the deputy of former Syrian military intelligence chief General Hassan Khalil.

His disclosures advanced the investigation, according to Lebanese newspapers.

Ath-Thawra said Mehlis had recently visited Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora "to inform him that he was unable to carry on with the international inquiry".

Politicians, MPs, governments and the Arab and international media have become entangled in the investigation "in a manner never before witnessed in history", according to Ath-Thawra.

The United Nations said Thursday it was studying a request from Siniora to extend the UN investigative team's mission until the end of 2005, but Mehlis's report was still due to be delivered to the Security Council in late October.

Lebanese press reports quoted Siniora as saying that Mehlis was seeking to extend the mission until December 15.

Four top pro-Syrian security officials in Lebanon have been arrested over the February 14 killing of Hariri in a massive Beirut bomb blast which plunged the country into political turmoil.

Mehlis has also visited Syria twice to question security officials, amid widespread allegations in Lebanon that Damascus had a hand in the killing.

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