"I want to be very clear: We don't, at this point, have any indications that I would consider credible and firm that that has taken place. But we will tie down every lead," said national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

However, Rice refused to rule out the scenario raised by Paris-based Syrian dissident Nizar Nayyouf who told Britain's independent Channel Five News that a senior Syrian military intelligence source had told him about the weapons.

"There hasn't been any hard evidence that such a thing happened," Rice told reporters, but "I can't dismiss anything that we haven't had an opportunity to fully assess."

US-led forces in control of Iraq for months have yet to locate the vast arsenals of chemical and biological weapons that President George W. Bush accused Saddam Hussein of possessing in violation of UN resolutions.

The unnamed source revealed that such weapons were smuggled across the Iraqi border in ambulances before the war that led to Saddam's ouster, and hidden at three sites in Syria, Nayyouf said.

"I knew this man during the last two years, he sent me much information," Nayyouf, a Syrian opposition activist and journalist, said of his contact.

He added that Saddam moved the weapons last February and March because he knew he faced defeat at the hands of the US-led coalition.

"I don't think we are at the point that we can make a judgment on this issue. But obviously we're going to follow up every lead and it would be a serious problem if that, in fact, did happen," said Rice.

The Foreign Office in London gave a cautious response to Nayyouf's claims.

"If there is new information we would naturally follow it up," a spokesman said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday rejected British and US calls to renounce weapons of mass destruction and indicated that he would not abandon his country's suspected chemical and biological programs unless Israel gave up its undeclared nuclear arsenal.

"We are a country which is (partially) occupied, and from time to time we are exposed to Israeli aggression," Assad told the London-based Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"It is natural for us to look for means to defend ourselves," he said.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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