By Anthony Shadid

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- A memento sat in Gebran Tueni's office that the journalist, lawmaker and opponent of Syria pointed to with pride. It was a broken jar, shattered by residents of the Lebanese border town of Majdal Anjar on April 26, the day the last Syrian troops left the country after a 29-year presence. It recalled an Arabic proverb: Break a jar and an unwanted guest will never return. Tueni took the shards and placed them in the Plexiglas display case at his newspaper office.

"On the day this jar was broken, the last Syrian soldier departed from Lebanon," the display read.

It reflected a style that made the 48-year-old Tueni celebrated, but controversial, even polarizing. To many here, that boldness also contributed to his death. On Monday, 88 pounds of TNT packed in a car blew Tueni's armored sport-utility vehicle over the side of a hill, killing him and two others. It was the latest in a string of attacks that have killed and wounded some of Lebanon's most prominent opponents of Syria. Tueni had returned only the day before from France, where he had spent weeks, on and off, fearing an attempt on his life.

His death came hours before a U.N. investigator submitted a report to the Security Council on the Feb. 14 car bomb assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Detlev Mehlis, a German prosecutor who is leading the probe, said he had uncovered new evidence substantiating charges of Syrian involvement in Hariri's death. It said Syria had been slow to cooperate with the investigation despite a Security Council resolution, had burned intelligence documents related to the assassination, and had intimidated a key witness.

Tueni was a newly elected lawmaker and the publisher of al-Nahar, a leading Lebanese newspaper founded by his grandfather. Hailing from a prominent Greek Orthodox family and long a figure in Lebanese politics, his profile rose during protests in Beirut after Hariri's assassination that helped force Syria's withdrawal. Another leader of those protests, journalist Samir Kassir of the same newspaper, was killed on June 2 by a bomb planted in his Alfa Romeo.

Monday's blast, apparently triggered by remote control, scorched the tree-studded hillside in an eastern suburb of Beirut and shattered windows more than 100 yards away. At least 10 cars were destroyed, some of the wreckage strewn across a road littered with debris and awash in blackened water. Acrid smoke mixed with the scent of pine as fires smoldered hours later.

"They killed Gebran! They killed Gebran!" a bystander shouted at the site.

Tueni and the two other men -- driver George Flouti and bodyguard Andre Mrad -- were charred beyond recognition, witnesses said. At least 39 people were wounded in the attack, which sent a chill through an already tense Lebanese capital.

"We will not succumb. We will not succumb," Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said in a statement before Lebanon's cabinet met to discuss the killing. "The criminals will go on killing us one after the other, and we will not give up at any cost." Siniora stopped short of assigning blame.

In Washington, President Bush condemned the killing, saying it was "yet another act of violence aimed at subjugating Lebanon to Syrian domination and silencing the Lebanese press."

Lebanese Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh said he had "no doubt" that Syrian President Bashar Assad and "his band of criminals are behind this." Hamadeh, Tueni's uncle, was the target of an assassination attempt last year.

Syrian Information Minister Mehdi Dakhlallah denied any Syrian role in the attack, saying the timing was designed to escalate pressure on a government that has become increasingly isolated since Hariri's assassination.

"Syria denounces this act strongly, regardless of who was being targeted and regardless of any differences in political points of view," Dakhlallah said on Syrian state television. "We have become accustomed to some Lebanese figures rushing before even knowing the story to make statements that implicate Syria." He also suggested Israel might have played a role.

A previously unknown group calling itself Strugglers for the Unity and Freedom in the Levant asserted responsibility for the killing in a statement faxed to foreign news agencies. It said the same fate awaited other opponents of what it called "Arabism" in Lebanon.

"We have broken the pen of Gebran Tueni," it said.

The killing unleashed denunciations from across Lebanon's political spectrum, whose divisions have deepened sharply over the U.N. investigation and calls for an international tribunal to try Hariri's assassins. Five Lebanese ministers sympathetic to Syria walked out of the cabinet meeting Monday night to protest a vote to form a tribunal. During the day, bells tolled at Greek Orthodox churches, and gatherings converged in Tueni's neighborhood of Ashrafiyah and outside the newspaper's office. The crowds stayed past nightfall, flying Lebanese flags and banners of Lebanon's plethora of political parties.

"He wrote his last article with his blood," read one poster, carried by 18-year-old Mahmoud Ghazayal.

Ghassan Tueni, Gebran's father, returned to Beirut from Paris on Monday night and went to the al-Nahar headquarters. A respected columnist and former publisher, he headed the newspaper's editorial meeting Monday night, columnist Edmond Saab told LBC, a Lebanese television station. The headline for Tuesday's edition read, "Gebran didn't die and al-Nahar will continue."

Tueni inspired sharp opinions; few here were neutral about him. His public persona, brave, blunt and sometimes cynical, showed more of a journalist's aggressiveness than a politician's deftness. The father of four daughters, including twins born this summer, he was especially critical of Syria's involvement in Lebanon. Last week, Al-Manar Television, the station of the Shiite movement Hezbollah, reported that Israeli television was rebroadcasting some of Tueni's statements and suggesting that he was serving their interests.

"The Syrian regime didn't offer anything to Syria, didn't offer anything to Lebanon, didn't offer anything to the international community. This regime promised a lot, lied a lot and didn't deliver anything," Tueni said in an interview in October. "This regime lives on mafias, lives on money laundering, lives on drug dealing, lives on corruption."

Tueni had traveled to Paris this summer after lists circulated that purported to name Lebanese figures whom Syria and its allies wanted to assassinate. The list's authenticity was questioned, but in each version, Tueni's name appeared.

In the past 14 months, more than a dozen bombings have killed or wounded several prominent Lebanese personalities: Hamadeh, Kassir, former Communist Party leader George Hawi, Defense Minister Elias Murr and journalist May Chidiac. The killings and the expectation that more will follow have ignited a wave of anger, underscored by a sense of helplessness.

"Fear is back. In that, they succeeded," said Melhem Chaoul, a sociologist at Lebanese University. "Fear comes from the feeling that you're alone, facing someone stronger, more violent and better able to kill you."

In Sassin Square in East Beirut, Tueni's supporters gathered during the day, propping up a huge portrait of him against a blue background. Behind it, a woman sat with three red roses. Some cried. Others hurled insults at Syria and chanted.

"We want revenge! We want revenge!" they shouted.

Inside a cafe, Sahar Rawas, 23, watched the events through a glass window. A half-hour earlier, she had closed her clothing store, saying she planned to reopen it after three days, a traditional period of mourning.

"People are scared and angry. They don't know what to do anymore," Rawas said. "This is just talk," she said, pointing at the crowd. "They're just talking and talking and talking, and talking is not enough. You can't talk with whoever is doing this."

Special correspondents Alia Ibrahim and Lynn Maalouf contributed to this report.