Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah said on Monday that a German magazine report implicating his terrorist group in the killing of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri was "very, very dangerous" and accused Israel of being behind the report. "The report in Der Spiegel is very, very, very dangerous," Nasrallah said in comments transmitted via video link to thousands of supporters massed in Hizbullah's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs.

Speaking on the the ninth anniversary of the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, the sheikh added, "I consider the report in Der Spiegel an Israeli accusation that Hizbullah killed the martyr Rafik Hariri and we will deal with this claim as such," he said,  Analysts fear the murder reports could spark civil strife as Lebanon prepares to hold crunch elections. "If the Special Tribunal for Lebanon comes out and confirms the report, we could be facing an all-out civil war," Paul Salem, head of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Centre, told the news agency AFP.