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Blast Kills Ex-Premier In Lebanon
Supporters Blame Syria; 13 Others Die in Attack
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 15, 2005; Page A01
BEIRUT, Feb. 14 -- Former prime minister Rafiq Hariri was killed Monday when a powerful car bomb exploded on Beirut's fashionable waterfront, evoking the political violence that plagued Lebanon during its long civil war.
In the aftermath of the blast, which killed 13 people besides Hariri and filled hospitals with scores of wounded, including the economy minister, opposition leaders and angry demonstrators gathered in front of Hariri's downtown mansion, blaming Syria for the most serious political assassination in Lebanon since sectarian fighting ended nearly 16 years ago. Hariri had emerged in recent months as a chief opponent of the presence of Syrian troops in the country.
The bomb exploded just before lunchtime as the former prime minister's motorcade reached a busy curve along this seaside capital's elegant Corniche. It left a clutter of smoldering sport-utility vehicles and sedans in a crater six feet deep, with flames flickering for hours. The explosion sheared off the facades of some of Beirut's most luxurious hotels, shattering glass within a quarter-mile radius.
A Palestinian militant asserted responsibility for the bombing in a video aired on al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television network. The man said that he represented a previously unheard-of organization and that he had carried out the bombing because of Hariri's financial dealings with the ruling family of Saudi Arabia.
Hariri's political supporters said they believed Syria was involved in the attack.
At a tearful meeting Monday night at Hariri's home, Lebanon's opposition leaders blamed Syria and its allies in the Lebanese security forces for Hariri's death and called for an immediate withdrawal of Syrian soldiers from the country. They also demanded that Lebanon's government resign and called a three-day strike to protest the killing.
"The Lebanese state and Syria are responsible," Bassam Sabah, a member of the opposition bloc in parliament, said at a news conference afterward. "The opposition will not stop asking for freedom."
The Syrian government, which President Bush accused in his State of the Union address of harboring terrorists, vehemently denied the charges. Mehdi Dakhlallah, Syria's information minister, condemned the assassination as "a terrorist act."
Lebanese government officials linked Hariri's killing to mounting international pressure on Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and to end its sponsorship of Hezbollah, an armed Shiite Muslim political movement that operates in the south.
"We believe the targeting of Hariri is the targeting of Lebanon as a whole," Elie Ferzli, Lebanon's information minister, said in an interview with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. "The whole region is on fire, and now the fire is among us."
In Washington, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the Bush administration would consult with the region's governments in coming days.
"It's premature to know who was responsible for this attack, but we continue to be concerned about the foreign occupation in Lebanon," McClellan said. "We've expressed those concerns. Syria has maintained a military presence there for some time now, and that is a concern of ours."
Hariri, 60, was a self-made billionaire who spearheaded the renovation of Beirut's war-battered downtown. His assassination comes as Lebanon prepares for parliamentary elections, scheduled to begin as early as April, that could usher in a government more strongly opposed to Syria's decisive influence in Lebanese political affairs. Syria maintains an estimated 15,000 troops in bases on the outskirts of Beirut and in the eastern Bekaa Valley.
A Sunni Muslim, Hariri resigned as prime minister in October, after holding the office for all but about five years of the country's postwar reconstruction era. He was seen as a reassuring figure by international investors and lenders, and over that time Lebanon's economy surged on a wave of tourism and construction. But the country remains hampered by huge debt and official corruption that has ravaged its public services.
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."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Supporters Blame Syria; 13 Others Die in Attack
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 15, 2005; Page A01
BEIRUT, Feb. 14 -- Former prime minister Rafiq Hariri was killed Monday when a powerful car bomb exploded on Beirut's fashionable waterfront, evoking the political violence that plagued Lebanon during its long civil war.
In the aftermath of the blast, which killed 13 people besides Hariri and filled hospitals with scores of wounded, including the economy minister, opposition leaders and angry demonstrators gathered in front of Hariri's downtown mansion, blaming Syria for the most serious political assassination in Lebanon since sectarian fighting ended nearly 16 years ago. Hariri had emerged in recent months as a chief opponent of the presence of Syrian troops in the country.
The bomb exploded just before lunchtime as the former prime minister's motorcade reached a busy curve along this seaside capital's elegant Corniche. It left a clutter of smoldering sport-utility vehicles and sedans in a crater six feet deep, with flames flickering for hours. The explosion sheared off the facades of some of Beirut's most luxurious hotels, shattering glass within a quarter-mile radius.
A Palestinian militant asserted responsibility for the bombing in a video aired on al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television network. The man said that he represented a previously unheard-of organization and that he had carried out the bombing because of Hariri's financial dealings with the ruling family of Saudi Arabia.
Hariri's political supporters said they believed Syria was involved in the attack.
At a tearful meeting Monday night at Hariri's home, Lebanon's opposition leaders blamed Syria and its allies in the Lebanese security forces for Hariri's death and called for an immediate withdrawal of Syrian soldiers from the country. They also demanded that Lebanon's government resign and called a three-day strike to protest the killing.
"The Lebanese state and Syria are responsible," Bassam Sabah, a member of the opposition bloc in parliament, said at a news conference afterward. "The opposition will not stop asking for freedom."
The Syrian government, which President Bush accused in his State of the Union address of harboring terrorists, vehemently denied the charges. Mehdi Dakhlallah, Syria's information minister, condemned the assassination as "a terrorist act."
Lebanese government officials linked Hariri's killing to mounting international pressure on Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and to end its sponsorship of Hezbollah, an armed Shiite Muslim political movement that operates in the south.
"We believe the targeting of Hariri is the targeting of Lebanon as a whole," Elie Ferzli, Lebanon's information minister, said in an interview with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. "The whole region is on fire, and now the fire is among us."
In Washington, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the Bush administration would consult with the region's governments in coming days.
"It's premature to know who was responsible for this attack, but we continue to be concerned about the foreign occupation in Lebanon," McClellan said. "We've expressed those concerns. Syria has maintained a military presence there for some time now, and that is a concern of ours."
Hariri, 60, was a self-made billionaire who spearheaded the renovation of Beirut's war-battered downtown. His assassination comes as Lebanon prepares for parliamentary elections, scheduled to begin as early as April, that could usher in a government more strongly opposed to Syria's decisive influence in Lebanese political affairs. Syria maintains an estimated 15,000 troops in bases on the outskirts of Beirut and in the eastern Bekaa Valley.
A Sunni Muslim, Hariri resigned as prime minister in October, after holding the office for all but about five years of the country's postwar reconstruction era. He was seen as a reassuring figure by international investors and lenders, and over that time Lebanon's economy surged on a wave of tourism and construction. But the country remains hampered by huge debt and official corruption that has ravaged its public services.
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."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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