Word: rafik
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Syria is still considered the chief suspect in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, a former Prime Minister who was killed in a truck bomb explosion in February 2005. An international tribunal is being established to try Hariri's killers and the perpetrators of several other assassinations since then. Syria has denied involvement in the deaths and argues that the tribunal is nothing more than a political weapon wielded by the U.S. Still, few doubt that fences need to be mended between Lebanon and Syria, however difficult that may prove: in their 60 or so years of independent existence...
More than three years after the assassination of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, charges and counter-charges over alleged Syrian responsibility continue to haunt the Middle East. But the outcome of the investigation into the killing of a leader who stood up to Syrian influence in his country may yet be decided in the realm of politics. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a senior Republican who recently visited Syria, last week publicly suggested that the U.N. inquiry into Hariri's killing could be reduced in scope in exchange for greater security and political cooperation from Damascus...
...report, released by a U.N. commission investigating the February 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, stated that the former Lebanese premier was killed by a "network of individuals" also suspected of being linked to some of the other assassinations to have plagued Lebanon in the past three years...
...investigations into past bombings had made him a potential target. "He told me that he felt he was under threat," Nashabe told TIME. He added that while Eid could have been killed by Sunni jihadists, other suspects should not be ruled out. "He was helping in the investigation into Rafik Hariri's death," he said...
...became President. Chirac also was the only Western head of state to attend the funeral of Assad's father, President Hafez al-Assad in 2000. He dispatched a close aide to Damascus to serve as French ambassador and a team of technocrats to assist Assad's reform efforts. Rafik Hariri, then Lebanese Prime Minister and close friend of Chirac, was instrumental in building France's relations with Syria, hoping in exchange that Damascus would ease its tight grip on Lebanon. That was not to be, however, and by 2004 Chirac had lost patience with Damascus and joined...