DAMASCUS - The family of slain former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri was the latest target Friday in an ongoing war of words with Syria, which said its daily newspaper is sowing division between Lebanon and Syria.

The attack was directed at Beirut's Al-Mostaqbal, which virtually accused the Syrian government on Thursday of having murdered interior minister Ghazi Kanaan a day earlier and then claiming he had killed himself.

"His brutal death could be nothing but a premeditated assassination carried out by the Syrian regime," Al-Mostaqbal speculated, because he "told the truth or was about to tell it" to the UN probe into Hariri's February killing.

In reaction, the editor-in-chief of Syrian government daily Ath-Thawra, Fayez Sayegh, said the Hariri paper had "questioned the Syrian conclusion on the suicide... resorting to vulgar style and basing itself on evil analyses."

Sayegh added: "This press machine has contributed effectively to sowing division and hatred between the brotherly Syrian and Lebanese peoples, of defaming the Syrian national role in Lebanon and of inventing stories to dishonour Syrian leaders, notably those who were in Lebanon."

Syria was the virtual powerbroker in Lebanon for nearly three decades, and only pulled its troops out in April after Hariri's murder brought about domestic and international outcry.

Kanaan, who spent 20 years as head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon and was the country's virtual viceroy, died of a gunshot wound in his office on Wednesday.

His death was officially ruled a suicide, but there is widespread speculation that he may have been murdered to prevent him from divulging secrets he may have known about the Hariri murder.

Kanaan was among a number of Syrian officials questioned recently by the UN panel, headed by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, which is due to report its findings in less than two weeks.

Mehlis left Beirut for Vienna on Friday and will later head to New York, Lebanon's official ANI news agency said.

In a public statement hours before his death, which Kanaan said would be his last, he called a Lebanese radio station to deny corruption allegations broadcast Tuesday by a television station. He was accused of being in the pay of Hariri, a multi-billionaire.

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