WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The United States has deemed Iran the leading financier of Hamas and a Syrian-sponsored group.

Officials said the U.S. intelligence community has determined that Iran took over responsibility from Saudi Arabia in the financing of leading Palestinian Islamist groups. They said Iran provides about $100 million a year to Hamas.

"We estimate that Saudi Arabia was giving Hamas about $30 million a year until 2004," an official said. "We think the Iranians give them at least three times that much today."

Officials said Riyad reduced funding to Hamas in 2003 in wake of the Israeli assassination of the movement's founder, Ahmed Yassin. They said the Gulf kingdom was dismayed by the emerging ties between Yassin's successor and Teheran, a rival of Saudi Arabia.