WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States on Tuesday called on investigators of the United Nations to look into an allegation by former Syrian Vice President Abdul-Halim Khaddam that Syrian President Bashir Assad had threatened former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri several months before he was assassinated.

    Khaddam denounced last week Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying Assad threatened Hariri just months before the former Lebanese premier was assassinated in a bomb blast in Beirut on Feb.14, 2005.

    He said in an interview with Dubai-based television Al-Arabiya that Assad warned Hariri in August 2004 that he would "crush whoever attempts to overturn our decision" to extend the term of Lebanon's pro-Syrian president.

    Khaddam, who left Syria several months ago, is now in Paris with his family.

    Referring to Khaddam's allegation, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters, "I think his remarks warrant further investigation by Mr. (Detlev) Mehlis."

    "I think that Mr. Haddam's remarks raise some deeply troubling issues as to what exactly was going on during the period in time in question," McCormack said.

    "They raise serious questions about who in the Syrian government may have been invovled in the assassination."

    Mehlis, who led a four-month UN probe, released a 54-page report last October that concluded that senior Syrian security officials were implicated in the massive bomb blast that killed Hariri and 20 others in Beirut.

    Syria has agreed to allow its officials to be questioned by the UN investigation into Hariri's assassination. But it has categorically denied any link with murder of Hariri. Enditem