SOURCE: Reuters
Beirut
A huge car bomb killed Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafiq Al Hariri and a dozen other people on Monday in Beirut's most devastating attack since the 1975-90 civil war.
Hariri's motorcade was blown up as it passed an exclusive section of the seafront Corniche, after he left a meeting in parliament to discuss elections in May. Former economy minister Basil Fuleihan, also in the convoy, was critically wounded.
Some of Hariri's bodyguards were among those killed in an attack that sent deep shock waves through a fragile country still trying to put its bloody past behind it.
The explosion outside the St. George Hotel gouged a deep crater out of the road, ripped facades from luxury buildings and set cars ablaze on streets carpeted with rubble and broken glass. Officials said at least 100 people were wounded.
Several of the vehicles from Hariri's convoy were torn apart and set on fire despite their armour plating. A senior security source said the cause was a car bomb.
"Everything around us collapsed," a Syrian building worker at the site said. "It was as if an earthquake hit the area."
Hariri, a billionaire businessman and the driving force behind Lebanon's postwar reconstruction, had resigned from government in October but remained politically influential.
He recently joined opposition calls for Syrian troops to quit Lebanon in the run-up to the general election.
"Syria regards this as an act of terrorism, a crime that seeks to destabilise (Lebanon)," Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhl-Allah said. He later told Al-Jazeera television: "This comes at a time of great international pressure on Lebanon and Syria which aims to realise Israel's desires in the region, and this act cannot be separated from these pressures."
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad called the blast a "horrendous criminal act". Lebanese President Emile Lahoud called an emergency cabinet meeting.
The White House condemned the killing and said Lebanon should be able to pursue its political future "free from violence and intimidation and free from Syrian occupation."
But spokesman Scott McClellan said Washington did not know who was behind the bombing and he was not accusing Syria.
French President Jacques Chirac, a close friend of Hariri, called for an international inquiry into attack that killed him.
The European Union urged Lebanon to go ahead with the election in May, despite Hariri's assassination.
Rescue workers clawed at piles of debris across the street from the hotel hardest hit by the blast. Witnesses said at least five people had been buried there by the explosion.
The blast could be heard even outside the city limits and shattered windows in buildings hundreds of metres away.
Scores of firefighters doused the burning vehicles and bloodied survivors were taken away by ambulance. Hariri's body, with wounds and burns to the face, was taken to the American University Hospital where sympathisers gathered and wept.
Prime Minister Omar Karami visited the bomb scene amid tight security as dark acrid smoke drifted over a clear blue sky.
He was among many Lebanese politicians to condemn the attack. Hezbollah called it "a heinous crime and cowardly act that targets Lebanon's stability and aims at planting strife in the country."
Beirut was often rocked by car bombs during the civil war, when fighting among religious and political factions all but tore Lebanon apart. But they have been rare since then.
Neighbouring Syria became ever more dominant during the conflict and took much of the credit for ending the war.
But Lebanese voices calling for Damascus to pull out its 14,000 troops have grown louder, backed by a UN Security Council resolution calling for their withdrawal.
In October a car bomb wounded opposition parliamentarian Marwan Hamadeh, soon after he quit as economy minister in protest at the extension of President Lahoud's term.
Jibril Rajoub, a Palestinian military leader, was killed by a bomb that ripped through his car in Beirut in May 2002. Earlier that year, a bomb killed Elie Hobeika, a key figure in a massacre of Palestinian refugees in 1982.
Hariri, 60, had held office for most of the past 12 years before quitting in October 2004 amid a bitter rift with Lahoud.
The Sunni Muslim Hariri spent some 20 years in Saudi Arabia, where construction deals made him a fortune that Forbes estimated at $3.8 billion in 2003.
Businessmen praised him for cutting through a paralysed bureaucracy and rebuilding war-shattered Beirut, but hopes that economic renaissance would flower with the Middle East peace process of the 1990s wilted with it instead.
There was no claim of responsibility for the assassination and no obvious suspect. "This is the work of an intelligence service, not a small group," said Rime Allaf, Middle East analyst at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs.
"Whoever did it aimed at creating chaos in Lebanon and pointing the finger at Syria. I can't believe anyone in Syria could be naive enough to think that this would help them."
She added: "The Israelis have been thought responsible for a number of assassinations in Lebanon, but why would they want to stir things up now? The Syrians must be very worried."
Amro Moussa, Secretary General of the Arab League, said: "I don't think there will be any gain from his death... I believe the moment is not a moment of pointing fingers."
Vice Premier Shimon Peres of Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon for two decades, said: "I have no idea who did this. He lived in a dangerous country and they (the Lebanese government) should have taken control over that country. Instead of this they surrendered to all kinds of terrorists."
Rafiq Al Hariri, a business tycoon who became one of Lebanon's most influential politicians and served as its prime minister for most of its post-civil war years, was killed in an explosion Monday targeting his motorcade. He was 60.
Hariri's vast fortune allowed him to maintain an independent political posture. He led his country's revival after the 1975-90 civil war, serving as prime minister for 10 of 14 years before stepping down in October 2004 amid an intense power struggle. For years, he'd been engaged in a fierce rivalry with Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud.
A charismatic man with international connections -- including a close friendship with French President Jacques Chirac -- Hariri was for years regarded by many Lebanese as the country's hope for economic revival and political stability.
Chirac's office quickly condemned the assassination, called for an international investigation and mourned Hariri as a man who "incarnated the indefatigable will of independence, freedom and democracy" for Lebanon.
In 1989, Hariri paid all the expenses of a Christian-Muslim peace conference in Taif, Saudi Arabia, which produced an accord that finally ended the civil war a year later.
He was the major shareholder in Solidere, the private company in charge of rebuilding Beirut's war-shattered downtown. Though credited for the revival, his critics blame him for running up a huge debt in the process.
Hariri first became prime minister in October 1992 -- a move hoped to restore national confidence in the Lebanese economy and bolster the country's burgeoning business community. In 1998, he lost his post after a squabble with then Lebanese President Elias Hrawi over how to resolve the country's ailing economy.
He was asked to form a new government in October 2000 after he won landslide majority in the general elections.
Four years later, he resigned following the extension of Lahoud's presidency. The extension was in defiance of a September 2 UN Security Council Resolution (1559) that called for a withdrawal of Syrian troops and for Lebanese presidential elections to be held.
Hariri signed the decree allowing the extension of Lahoud's mandate and voted in Parliament for Lahoud's additional three years as president. Then, he surprised the nation by announcing his resignation.
After stepping down, Hariri kept himself largely on the sidelines. Members of Hariri's parliamentary bloc had also been taking part in opposition meetings calling on Syria to extract its soldiers from Lebanon.
Born into a modest Sunni Muslim peasant family in the southern port city of Sidon, Hariri became one of the region's wealthiest men. He started out as an accountant and studied commerce before moving to Saudi Arabia and making his fortune in construction, building crucial ties with the Saudi monarchy along the way and receiving Saudi citizenship in 1987.
He is a personal friend of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd and used his relations to rebuild Lebanon.
Hariri ran a commercial empire that also embraced computers, banking, insurance, real estate and television and was the majority owner of Lebanon's Future Television. He had homes in the United States, Europe, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon and owned several private jets. Thousands are employed by his companies and charities
He is survived by his wife, Nazik Hariri, and six children. A seventh child, his son Hussameddine, died in a 1991 car accident in the United States.
Beirut
A huge car bomb killed Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafiq Al Hariri and a dozen other people on Monday in Beirut's most devastating attack since the 1975-90 civil war.
Hariri's motorcade was blown up as it passed an exclusive section of the seafront Corniche, after he left a meeting in parliament to discuss elections in May. Former economy minister Basil Fuleihan, also in the convoy, was critically wounded.
Some of Hariri's bodyguards were among those killed in an attack that sent deep shock waves through a fragile country still trying to put its bloody past behind it.
The explosion outside the St. George Hotel gouged a deep crater out of the road, ripped facades from luxury buildings and set cars ablaze on streets carpeted with rubble and broken glass. Officials said at least 100 people were wounded.
Several of the vehicles from Hariri's convoy were torn apart and set on fire despite their armour plating. A senior security source said the cause was a car bomb.
"Everything around us collapsed," a Syrian building worker at the site said. "It was as if an earthquake hit the area."
Hariri, a billionaire businessman and the driving force behind Lebanon's postwar reconstruction, had resigned from government in October but remained politically influential.
He recently joined opposition calls for Syrian troops to quit Lebanon in the run-up to the general election.
"Syria regards this as an act of terrorism, a crime that seeks to destabilise (Lebanon)," Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhl-Allah said. He later told Al-Jazeera television: "This comes at a time of great international pressure on Lebanon and Syria which aims to realise Israel's desires in the region, and this act cannot be separated from these pressures."
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad called the blast a "horrendous criminal act". Lebanese President Emile Lahoud called an emergency cabinet meeting.
The White House condemned the killing and said Lebanon should be able to pursue its political future "free from violence and intimidation and free from Syrian occupation."
But spokesman Scott McClellan said Washington did not know who was behind the bombing and he was not accusing Syria.
French President Jacques Chirac, a close friend of Hariri, called for an international inquiry into attack that killed him.
The European Union urged Lebanon to go ahead with the election in May, despite Hariri's assassination.
Rescue workers clawed at piles of debris across the street from the hotel hardest hit by the blast. Witnesses said at least five people had been buried there by the explosion.
The blast could be heard even outside the city limits and shattered windows in buildings hundreds of metres away.
Scores of firefighters doused the burning vehicles and bloodied survivors were taken away by ambulance. Hariri's body, with wounds and burns to the face, was taken to the American University Hospital where sympathisers gathered and wept.
Prime Minister Omar Karami visited the bomb scene amid tight security as dark acrid smoke drifted over a clear blue sky.
He was among many Lebanese politicians to condemn the attack. Hezbollah called it "a heinous crime and cowardly act that targets Lebanon's stability and aims at planting strife in the country."
Beirut was often rocked by car bombs during the civil war, when fighting among religious and political factions all but tore Lebanon apart. But they have been rare since then.
Neighbouring Syria became ever more dominant during the conflict and took much of the credit for ending the war.
But Lebanese voices calling for Damascus to pull out its 14,000 troops have grown louder, backed by a UN Security Council resolution calling for their withdrawal.
In October a car bomb wounded opposition parliamentarian Marwan Hamadeh, soon after he quit as economy minister in protest at the extension of President Lahoud's term.
Jibril Rajoub, a Palestinian military leader, was killed by a bomb that ripped through his car in Beirut in May 2002. Earlier that year, a bomb killed Elie Hobeika, a key figure in a massacre of Palestinian refugees in 1982.
Hariri, 60, had held office for most of the past 12 years before quitting in October 2004 amid a bitter rift with Lahoud.
The Sunni Muslim Hariri spent some 20 years in Saudi Arabia, where construction deals made him a fortune that Forbes estimated at $3.8 billion in 2003.
Businessmen praised him for cutting through a paralysed bureaucracy and rebuilding war-shattered Beirut, but hopes that economic renaissance would flower with the Middle East peace process of the 1990s wilted with it instead.
There was no claim of responsibility for the assassination and no obvious suspect. "This is the work of an intelligence service, not a small group," said Rime Allaf, Middle East analyst at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs.
"Whoever did it aimed at creating chaos in Lebanon and pointing the finger at Syria. I can't believe anyone in Syria could be naive enough to think that this would help them."
She added: "The Israelis have been thought responsible for a number of assassinations in Lebanon, but why would they want to stir things up now? The Syrians must be very worried."
Amro Moussa, Secretary General of the Arab League, said: "I don't think there will be any gain from his death... I believe the moment is not a moment of pointing fingers."
Vice Premier Shimon Peres of Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon for two decades, said: "I have no idea who did this. He lived in a dangerous country and they (the Lebanese government) should have taken control over that country. Instead of this they surrendered to all kinds of terrorists."
Rafiq Al Hariri, a business tycoon who became one of Lebanon's most influential politicians and served as its prime minister for most of its post-civil war years, was killed in an explosion Monday targeting his motorcade. He was 60.
Hariri's vast fortune allowed him to maintain an independent political posture. He led his country's revival after the 1975-90 civil war, serving as prime minister for 10 of 14 years before stepping down in October 2004 amid an intense power struggle. For years, he'd been engaged in a fierce rivalry with Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud.
A charismatic man with international connections -- including a close friendship with French President Jacques Chirac -- Hariri was for years regarded by many Lebanese as the country's hope for economic revival and political stability.
Chirac's office quickly condemned the assassination, called for an international investigation and mourned Hariri as a man who "incarnated the indefatigable will of independence, freedom and democracy" for Lebanon.
In 1989, Hariri paid all the expenses of a Christian-Muslim peace conference in Taif, Saudi Arabia, which produced an accord that finally ended the civil war a year later.
He was the major shareholder in Solidere, the private company in charge of rebuilding Beirut's war-shattered downtown. Though credited for the revival, his critics blame him for running up a huge debt in the process.
Hariri first became prime minister in October 1992 -- a move hoped to restore national confidence in the Lebanese economy and bolster the country's burgeoning business community. In 1998, he lost his post after a squabble with then Lebanese President Elias Hrawi over how to resolve the country's ailing economy.
He was asked to form a new government in October 2000 after he won landslide majority in the general elections.
Four years later, he resigned following the extension of Lahoud's presidency. The extension was in defiance of a September 2 UN Security Council Resolution (1559) that called for a withdrawal of Syrian troops and for Lebanese presidential elections to be held.
Hariri signed the decree allowing the extension of Lahoud's mandate and voted in Parliament for Lahoud's additional three years as president. Then, he surprised the nation by announcing his resignation.
After stepping down, Hariri kept himself largely on the sidelines. Members of Hariri's parliamentary bloc had also been taking part in opposition meetings calling on Syria to extract its soldiers from Lebanon.
Born into a modest Sunni Muslim peasant family in the southern port city of Sidon, Hariri became one of the region's wealthiest men. He started out as an accountant and studied commerce before moving to Saudi Arabia and making his fortune in construction, building crucial ties with the Saudi monarchy along the way and receiving Saudi citizenship in 1987.
He is a personal friend of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd and used his relations to rebuild Lebanon.
Hariri ran a commercial empire that also embraced computers, banking, insurance, real estate and television and was the majority owner of Lebanon's Future Television. He had homes in the United States, Europe, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon and owned several private jets. Thousands are employed by his companies and charities
He is survived by his wife, Nazik Hariri, and six children. A seventh child, his son Hussameddine, died in a 1991 car accident in the United States.