"We have no evidence of any Scud missiles in UNIFIL's area of operations" in southern Lebanon, the daily An-Nahar quoted Major General Alberto Asarta Cuevas of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, as saying.

"These missiles are large and difficult to hide," he added in comments made in English.

Israel's President Shimon Peres sparked controversy in April when he accused Syria of supplying the Shiite Hezbollah movement with long-range Scud missiles, a charge Damascus has staunchly denied.

Washington, which has sought rapprochement with Damascus, further fed the controversy when Defence Secretary Robert Gates accused Iran and Syria of arming Hezbollah with sophisticated weaponry, without naming Scuds.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad about the risks of triggering a regional war if he supplied the Shiite group with the missiles.

But Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday refused to confirm or deny the Scud allegations, saying his militant party had a "legal" right to own any weapons it wished.

"We do not confirm or deny if we have received weapons or not, so we do not comment and we will not comment," Nasrallah said.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria, is the only group that did not disarm after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, arguing its weapons are necessary to fight Israel which it later faced off in a devastating conflict in 2006.

Spain in January took over command of the 12,000-strong UNIFIL, which was set up in 1978 to monitor Lebanon's border with Israel and was beefed up after the 2006 war.

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