Word: hariri
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Those words would haunt Hariri for the rest of his life. Seven weeks after his meeting in Damascus, he resigned. Almost four months after that, he was dead, assassinated on Valentine's Day in rebuilt downtown Beirut, the jewel of his political achievements, as he prepared to launch a bid to reclaim power and rid Lebanon of Syrian influence. In death, Hariri managed to obtain the prize he so desperately sought in the final months of his life. After his assassination a million Lebanese poured into the streets, galvanizing international opinion against Damascus and forcing the withdrawal of Syrian troops...
...summons came down from Damascus last August, informing Rafiq Hariri, then the Prime Minister of Lebanon, that he was wanted for a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad. For years Hariri had strived to maintain cordial relations with Lebanon's more powerful neighbor, acquiescing to Syria's domination of Lebanese politics as the price of Syria's role in ending Lebanon's 15-year civil war. But by last summer Assad suspected that Hariri was behind an international campaign to end Syria's occupation of Lebanon, and so he decided to warn Hariri not to oppose Syrian plans to reassert...
...while Hariri is a martyr who transcends Lebanon's sectarian divides-his grave in downtown Beirut has become the city's most popular tourist attraction-the circumstances surrounding his assassination are still cloaked in mystery. The bombing site remains cordoned off by police tape, the street littered with the gnarled remains of cars burned by the blast. A U.N. fact-finding mission concluded in March that the Syrian regime bore "primary responsibility" for the political circumstances leading up to Hariri's assassination, though Damascus has denied any involvement. A U.N. team arrived in Lebanon...
...killed Rafiq Hariri? Barring a confession from the conspirators, the world may never know the full truth. But interviews with the participants in the drama reveal the immense pressure under which Hariri lived out his final months. His encounter with Assad last August set off a six-month showdown that pit Hariri against one of the most ruthless regimes in the Middle East, which had concluded it could no longer tolerate his defiance. In the end, that defiance may have cost Hariri his life. But it also gave his countrymen-and, perhaps, the region-a chance for a different future...
...expected to complete the withdrawal of its 15,000 troops in Lebanon in time to win favorable comments in a United Nations report due out this week. With a new political era dawning, citizens learned the name of the man who may be their future Prime Minister: Saad Hariri, son of Rafik Hariri, the billionaire tycoon and popular politician whose assassination on Feb. 14 triggered the mass protests and international pressure that forced Syria to pull out its forces. Last week, the Hariri family formally announced that Saad, 35, one of Hariri's four sons from two marriages, would take...