Hariri Assassinated

Former Lebanese Prime Minister assassinated as his motorcade passed through downtown Beirut

Beirut - Mohammed Diab

February 2005

Former Lebanese Prime Minister, MP and leader of a parliamentary bloc Rafik Hariri was killed on Feb. 14, to the surprise and astonishment of most of the Lebanese people.

Hariri, who quit his premiership after the extension of the presidential mandate of President Emile Lahoud by the end of 2004, also had growing differences with the Syrian regime.

Like in previous assassination cases, the Lebanese government's investigations led nowhere. The opposition, a coalition of leftist and Christian rightist factions, accused the intelligence branches of the Lebanese government – which is dominated by the regime of neighboring Syria – of sponsoring the murder.

The opposition charged that the government, through its statement prior to Hariri's killing, had also allowed for such kind of violence by calling Mr. Hariri as the head of the opposition snake and more often than not blaming him for being behind UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which stipulates the withdrawal of all Syrian troops from Lebanon and the dismantling of remaining militias.

While Syria played innocent and the government presented a set of lame excuses for the murder that are not even worth mentioning in this article, the opposition argued that Syria is to be blamed for either it knew the killing and didn't stop it which makes Syria a partner in the murder, or it failed to predict the murder which makes Syria's presence under the pretext of maintaining security in Lebanon non valid.

The news outraged a wide section of the Lebanese population and drew worldwide, regional and local denunciation of the assassination. Two days later, Hariri's funeral witnessed the participation of 750,000 mourners, a figure which is by far one of the biggest for such a demonstration in the region foe a long while. Demonstrators shouted anti-Syrian and anti-government slogans demanding that the Syrian troops be withdrawn from Lebanon.

Syria maintains a contingent of 14, 000 soldiers in Lebanon. The Baathist regime used to justify the occupation of Lebanon by blaming the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon that extended between 1978 and 2000. But after 2000, calls for Syrian withdrawal were turned down on the basis that the Syrians were maintaining Lebanon's security.