Lebanonwire.com | Lebanon blames likely suicide attacker as US, UN put pressure on Syria

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February 15, 2005

Lebanon blames likely suicide attacker as US, UN put pressure on Syria
by Hala Boncompagni

BEIRUT, Feb 15 (AFP) - Lebanon said a suicide bomber was probably behind the murder of former premier Rafiq Hariri while ruling out an international probe Tuesday, as US and UN pressure mounted on Syria over the assassination.

The United States recalled its ambassador to Syria for urgent consultations, the State Department said.

Washington stopped short of directly pointing the finger at Syria, but expressed to Damascus its "deep concern as well as our profound outrage over this heinous act of terrorism", department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

He said that William Burns, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, was to attend Hariri's funeral on Wednesday.

Boucher said Washington had long expressed its concerns over Syria, which maintains some 14,000 troops and intelligence officials in Lebanon in violation of a UN Security Council resolution.

Monday's bomb attack in central Beirut "calls into question the stated reason behind this presence of the Syrian forces, that is Lebanon's internal security", he said.

The UN Security Council, meanwhile, requested an urgent report into the "terrorist" assassination of Hariri and again pressed Syria to pull its forces out of the country.

The council asked UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for a full report into the "circumstances, causes and consequences" of the killing, although the Lebanese government has rejected a French call for an international investigation.

As anger boiled over in Lebanon, a mob of mourners turned on a group of Syrian workers in Hariri's southern home town of Sidon to avenge his death.

The army was on high alert as the country was plunged into grief and despair over Hariri's assassination, an attack that triggered fears across the globe of a return to the dark days of civil war.

The opposition has put the blame squarely on the Syrian regime, whose dominant role in Lebanon's affairs was opposed by Hariri, a billionaire and five-time prime minister who spearheaded the country's post-war reconstruction.

Hariri, 60, was killed along with 14 other people when a huge explosion ripped through his motorcade on the Beirut seafront, leaving a trail of burnt and bloodied bodies, blazing cars and rubble.

"The security services are almost sure that it was a suicide car bomb," Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh said, adding however that the investigation was still going on and rejecting calls for an international probe.

Soldiers patrolled the streets after Lebanon's army ordered a mass mobilisation to "safeguard stability" and raised its state of alert to the maximum.

The assassination raised fears about the future stability of the country, amid mounting domestic political tensions and international pressure over Syria's role ahead of planned May elections.

A hitherto unknown Islamist group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was to avenge Hariri's close ties with the Saudi regime, but experts suggested it required highly sophisticated technology and know-how that only a well organised group or government might possess.

On Tuesday, a group calling itself "Al-Qaeda organization in Greater Syria" denied the involvement of Islamist militants in the assassination, in an Internet statement.

Hariri, a rags-to-riches tycoon who also held Saudi nationality, had resigned as prime minister four months ago in a row over Syrian dominance of Lebanon and the continued presence of about 14,000 troops on its soil.

He was "assassinated in a way that brings the ghosts of the not-so distant past howling into present-day reality," said the English-language Daily Star. "The pressing concern of the moment is how to prevent Lebanon from tottering over the brink of an abyss."

Hariri was to be buried in a ceremony at the Mohammed al-Amin mosque in Beirut, a place of worship that he had helped restore following the war.

The family called for a massive public attendance but bluntly told officials from the pro-Syrian government formed after Hariri's resignation in October to stay away.

Outside Hariri's west Beirut mansion, his supporters grieved in silence, many of them women hugging framed portraits of Hariri against their hearts as cars draped in black cloth drove slowly past the house.

The attack shattered the picture of a safe and secure modern Lebanon carefully crafted by Hariri and raised fears of a new economic crisis in a country already teetering under a mountain of debt.

Anti-Syrian opposition leaders blamed Damascus, demanding a three-day strike, the resignation of the government and the withdrawal of Syrian troops.

"This regime, backed by the Syrians, this regime of terrorists... succeeded yesterday in eliminating Rafiq Hariri," said Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.

Criminal investigators pursued the painstaking task of sifting through the debris, examining cars that were turned into charred wrecks by the blast and collecting human remains for DNA tests.

Sources said about 200 to 250 kilograms (440 to 550 pounds) of TNT or another powerful explosive was used.

"The vehicle was not parked along the side of the road. The crater dug by the explosion was in the middle of the road. So the vehicle was alongside (Hariri's) convoy and could have tried to ram it," the interior minister said.

"It is possible that it was a suicide bomber who was driving it."

Hariri, who was born to a poor farmer but rose to became one of the world's 100 richest people, headed five governments from 1992. But he later became a thorn in the side of Beirut's political masters in Damascus and resigned as premier in October after disputes with pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud.

Syria was nevertheless among the first to condemn the attack.