Word: hariri
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...ASSASSINATED. SAMIR KASSIR, 45, prominent, outspoken Lebanese journalist and frequent critic of Syrian control in Lebanon; in a car bombing attack in Beirut. The first attack on a prominent Lebanese opposition figure since the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February, it came less than a week after the anti-Syrian opposition won a clear victory in the first round of Lebanon's four-part parliamentary elections. Syria, still influential despite its April withdrawal of troops under intense international pressure, denied involvement in the murder, which reignited national outrage and prompted calls for the resignation of Lebanese President...
...year-old Kassir, a university lecturer and columnist for Lebanon's An-Nahar newspaper, was dead, blown to pieces by a bomb planted beneath the driver's seat of his gray Alfa Romeo. It was the first assassination in Lebanon since the murder of former Premier Rafiq Hariri in February, which sparked huge anti-Syrian demonstrations and finally compelled Damascus to disengage from its neighbor at the end of April. Why was Kassir targeted? He was the most outspoken critic of Syria's stranglehold over Lebanon. "It's a message to say that despite the international pressure, these people...
ASSASSINATED. SAMIR KASSIR, 45, outspoken Lebanese journalist and critic of Syrian control in Lebanon; in a car bombing in Beirut. The first attack on a prominent Lebanese opposition figure since the killing of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February, it came less than a week after the anti-Syrian opposition won a clear victory in the first round of Lebanon's parliamentary elections. Syria, still influential despite its withdrawal of troops under international pressure, denied involvement in the murder, which reignited national outrage and prompted calls for the resignation of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud...
...Hariri left parliament at about 12:30 p.m. With Fleihan and Khoury, he walked across the street to the Cafe de l'Etoile. "He was confident about his decision to break with the Syrians," recalls a diplomat who chatted with him. "He said, 'I'm sick and tired of the sons of bitches.'" Dr. Khoury was beeped to perform an emergency operation at American University Hospital. Hariri got behind the wheel of his armor-plated Mercedes Benz, with Fleihan in the passenger seat, and drove toward his West Beirut mansion in a six-vehicle convoy. As they passed the seafront...
...attackers hoped to silence the anti-Syrian front that Hariri had built, they were disappointed just seven days later, when 150,000 people descended on Martyrs' Square in Beirut to mourn Hariri, wave Lebanese flags and demand Syria's withdrawal. The blast did, however, have a chilling effect on one group close to Hariri: his family. Days after their father's funeral, Hariri's four sons fled the country following a warning that they might be next. But as the Syrians began pulling out their troops, paving the way for elections, the Hariri clan grew concerned that without its leadership...