15 February 2005	Tuesday	05 Muharram 1426

BEIRUT, Feb 14: A huge car bomb on Monday killed Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik al Hariri, a billionaire who masterminded the country's reconstruction from its 1975-90 civil war.

At least 12 others, including several of Mr Hariri's bodyguards, died when his motorcade was blown up as it passed through an exclusive section of Beirut's seafront, four months after he resigned as prime minister.

Former economy minister Basil Fuleihan, also riding in the convoy, was critically wounded. At least 100 other people were hurt. So advanced was the bomb, security sources said, that it defeated jamming equipment so hi-tech that Mr Hariri's passing convoy would interfere with cell phones and televisions.

French President Jacques Chirac, a close friend of Mr Hariri, called for an international inquiry and the European Union urged Lebanon to go ahead with the election in May despite the assassination.

Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Britain and Saudi Arabia all condemned the killing. A previously unknown group said in a videotape aired by Al Jazeera television that it had carried out the attack because of Mr Hariri's support for the Saudi government.

The explosion, outside the St George Hotel in one of Beirut's glitziest areas, gouged a deep crater in the road, ripped facades from luxury buildings and set cars ablaze on streets carpeted with rubble and broken glass.

Vehicles from Mr Hariri's convoy were torn apart and set on fire despite their armour plating. "Everything around us collapsed," a Syrian building worker at the site said.

Rescue workers clawed at piles of debris across the street from the hotel, which was closed for renovation. Witnesses said at least five people had been buried there by the explosion.

The blast could be heard even outside the city limits and shattered windows in buildings hundreds of metres away. Scores of fire fighters doused the burning vehicles and bloodied survivors were taken away by ambulance. Mr Hariri's body, with wounds and burns to the face, was taken to the American University Hospital, where sympathizers gathered and wept.

Prime Minister Omar Karami visited the bomb scene surrounded by guards as dark acrid smoke drifted over a clear blue sky. He was among many Lebanese politicians to condemn the attack. The Hezbollah called it "a heinous crime" aimed at planting strife in the country.

SYRIA'S REACTION: "Syria regards this as an act of terrorism, a crime that seeks to destabilize (Lebanon)," Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhl Allah said.

He later told Al Jazeera: "This comes at a time of great international pressure on Lebanon and Syria which aims to realize Israel's desires in the region, and this act cannot be separated from these pressures." -Reuters