Huge Beirut car bomb kills ex-premier Hariri

A huge car bomb yesterday killed Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, a billionaire who masterminded the country's reconstruction from its 1975-90 civil war.

At least 12 others, including several of Mr Hariri's bodyguards, died when his motorcade was blown up as it passed through an exclusive section of Beirut's seafront, four months after he resigned as prime minister.

Former economy minister Basil Fuleihan, also riding in the convoy, was critically wounded. At least 100 other people were hurt, officials said.

The explosion outside the St George Hotel gouged a deep crater in the road, ripped façades from luxury buildings and set cars ablaze on streets carpeted with rubble and broken glass.

Vehicles from Mr 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."

A previously unknown Islamist group said in a videotape aired by Al Jazeera television that it carried out the attack because of Mr Hariri's support for the Saudi government. The claim could not be confirmed.

Mr Hariri had remained politically influential since his resignation and recently joined opposition calls for Syrian troops to quit Lebanon in the run-up to a May general election.

"Syria regards this as an act of terrorism, a crime that seeks to destabilise (Lebanon)," Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhl-Allah said by telephone.

He later told Al Jazeera: "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.

In a telephone conversation with Lahoud, Assad said no effort should be spared to find the killers of Hariri, who the official Syrian news agency said had "close ties with Syria".

The White House condemned the killing and said Lebanon should be able to pursue its future "free from violence and intimidation and free from Syrian occupation", but added it did not know who killed Mr Hariri and was not accusing Syria.

Rescue workers clawed at piles of debris across the street from the hotel, which was closed for renovation. 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. Mr 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 surrounded by guards as dark acrid smoke drifted over a clear blue sky.

He was among many Lebanese politicians to condemn the attack. The Shi'ite Hizbollah guerilla group called it "a heinous crime" aimed at planting strife in the country.

Mr Hariri's funeral was planned for tomorrow and the government called for three days of national mourning.

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 pro-Syrian President Lahoud's term.

Mohammad Jihad Ahmed Jibril, 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.

Mr Hariri, 60, had held office for most of the past 12 years before quitting in October 2004 amid a bitter rift with Lahoud.

"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."

Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Britain and Saudi Arabia all condemned the killing. French President Jacques Chirac, a close friend of Hariri, called for an international inquiry and the European Union urged Lebanon to go ahead with the election in May despite the assassination.