The United Nation's preliminary investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri indicates that Syrian intelligence officials were highly involved in the plotting of Hariri's murder as were Lebanese officials who were beholden to Damascus. The report also indicated the plot was complex and required further investigation.
Hariri was killed last February by a car bomb in Beirut shortly after he began to actively oppose the Syrian occupation over Lebanon.
The report concluded that the decision to murder Hariri 'could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials and could not have been further organized without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services.'
The U.N. Security Council will discuss the report next Tuesday. U.N. officials have been granted two additional months to conclude their investigation.
While the investigation did not call for the arrest of any Syrian officials, it did say that many of them were trying to mislead the investigators. Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa was accused of outright lying to the commission in the report.
In addition, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, a strong pro-Syrian politician, received a phone call just minutes before the blast that killed Hariri from the brother of a prominent member of a pro-Syrian group — a call that should be part of a further investigation according to the report.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the U.S. has 'considered various contingencies' but would not take any action until it consults with 'other interested governments.'
The report indicated that Hariri was most likely killed by a suicide bomber although a remote controlled device was listed as the second possibility.
This report may further weaken the government of Syrian leader Bashar Assad. Assad's prestige in the region was already undermined when international pressure forced him to withdraw Syrian forces from Lebanon in the weeks following Hariri's assassination. The United States is also putting pressure on Assad to stop the flow of foreign jihadists who are allegedly entering Iraq through Syria.
