Blast Kills Ex-Premier In Lebanon

Vehicles burn following the massive bomb attack that tore through the motorcade of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri in Beirut. Hariri resigned last year after a dispute with Syria, whom opposition figures saw behind the attack. (AP Photo)

Hariri quit the government weeks after parliament approved a term extension for the president who had been handpicked by Syria, Emile Lahoud, the former head of the Lebanese army. Hariri remained a leading member of the parliamentary opposition that includes Christians, Druze and Sunni Muslims, some of them remnants of the rival militias that fought in the civil war.

The political fallout from Lahoud's extension in office has severely tested Lebanon's postwar political framework, which distributes power equally among rival sectarian parties. Part of the peace treaty, known as the Taif Accord for the city in Saudi Arabia where it was signed in 1989, called on Syria to pull back all its troops to the Bekaa Valley within two years. It has not done so.

Syria first sent troops here in the 1970s at the request of Lebanon's embattled Christian-led government. The Syrian government considers its influence in the country central to its claim as a regional Arab power.

But many countries oppose the continued Syrian presence. The United States and France sponsored a U.N Security Council resolution in the midst of the debate over Lahoud's term extension, calling for the withdrawal of all foreign troops and the disarmament of all militias. The resolution did not cite Syria, but it is the only country with troops or an allied militia in Lebanon.

In a statement read Monday night, Lahoud called Hariri's assassination "a dark point in our history, to which the late prime minister contributed greatly by removing the traces of the war."

During the debate last October, a car bomb severely wounded Marwan Hamadi, a former economy minister, and killed his driver days after Hamadi had resigned his cabinet post in protest. Hamadi is aligned with the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a vocal critic of Syria's presence in Lebanon and a Hariri ally.

In an interview within weeks of his resignation, Hariri spoke cautiously about Syria's role in the extension of Lahoud's term, although he acknowledged that Damascus was the driving force behind the decision. He said he would not criticize Syria publicly because he feared the potential repercussions.

In the last two weeks, the opposition had stepped up its calls for Syria to comply with the Taif Accord, concerned about Syrian influence in the upcoming elections.

Although he did not lead a militia during the war, Hariri was protected by a large security detail that included some members of Lebanon's security services. Syria's most loyal allies tend to be members of the Lebanese military and intelligence agencies, and some of Hariri's grieving supporters suspected their complicity in the killing.

Gebran Tueni, a Maronite Christian leader who publishes a large Beirut newspaper, said Syria was responsible for Hariri's security "because of its complete occupation of Lebanon." Tueni was among opposition leaders who called Monday for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council to address the killing, as well as an international investigation to determine precisely who was responsible.

Because of the timing and size of the explosion, Hariri's allies dismissed the claims of Ahmed Tayseer Abu Adas, the Palestinian featured on the videotape, who said he carried out the bombing on behalf of the "Group for Advocacy and Holy War in the Levant." Lebanese security forces announced hours later that they had raided Abu Adas's Beirut home and seized computer equipment and tapes. But he was not there.

"Such a terrorist act could not have been done by one person or a small group," said Amin Gemayel, the Maronite Christian president of Lebanon in the 1980s who attended the meeting at Hariri's home. "This needed a huge infrastructure, and deep intelligence gathering. Only a state, or a state agency, could have accomplished such a meticulous attack."

Special correspondent Alia Ibrahim contributed to this report.