Lebanon mourns Hariri

Lebanon mourned assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri yesterday as opposition leaders bluntly implicated Syria in the murder and Syrian workers were attacked in the former prime minister's hometown.

The Sunni Muslim billionaire's death in a car bomb blast on Monday has spotlighted Lebanon's troubled ties with its powerful neighbour and revived memories of the 1975-90 civil war.

"This (Lebanese) regime is backed by the Syrians. This is the regime of terrorists and terrorism that was able yesterday to wipe out Rafik al-Hariri," Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said after presenting his condolences to Hariri's family in Beirut.

"I charge the Lebanese-Syrian police regime with the responsibility for Hariri's death," he said.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in the northern Sunni port city of Tripoli and hundreds demonstrated in Hariri's hometown of Sidon, shouting slogans blaming Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for his death, witnesses said.

A crowd of mourners assaulted Syrian workers with sticks and stones near Hariri's brother's house in Sidon, injuring five of them. A Syrian lorry was set on fire in north Lebanon.

Exiled former general Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian and long-time foe of Syria, said Damascus was indirectly, if not directly, responsible for the Hariri's killing.

"There are many Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services working in Beirut and they control everything in the country. I don't think that if they were taking care of Hariri he would be attacked so easily," Mr Aoun told Reuters by telephone.

Officials in Washington said President George W. Bush plans to call home the US ambassador in Syria, Margaret Scobey, for consultations following the killing.

The White House also said it was consulting with the UN Security Council - to meet later yesterday - about taking punitive measures against those responsible for the killing.

"We are constantly reviewing all our diplomatic options across the board, including further sanctions under the Syria Accountability Act," a senior administration official said.

The US Embassy in Beirut announced that Assistant Secretary of State William Burns will attend Mr Hariri's funeral.

Shops and offices shut for three days of official mourning and the Lebanese army went on alert ahead of the funeral, set for today.

Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam was among those who filed into Mr Hariri's palatial home to pay condolences.

"This crime targeted the Lebanese dream, Lebanese security and Lebanese peace," said Khaddam, a friend of Mr Hariri.

Mr Hariri, 60, who masterminded postwar reconstruction, was killed along with 14 others when a car bomb ripped through his motorcade in Beirut's seafront luxury hotel district. About 135 people were wounded in the biggest explosion since the war.

Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh said a suicide car bomber might have carried out the attack, which gouged a crater in the middle of the road as Mr Hariri's convoy drove by.

"It could have been that someone was driving the car and it might have a been a suicide (attacker) who blew himself up," he told a news conference, citing initial investigations.

Mr Franjieh said Lebanon would not agree to an international investigation into the killing as demanded by France.

A previously unknown Islamist group said on Monday it had carried out a suicide attack against Mr Hariri, who also holds Saudi citizenship, because he supported the Saudi royal family.

Mr Hariri resigned as prime minister in October after falling out with Syria over its role in extending the term of his political rival, President Emile Lahoud.