DAYS before Rafik Hariri’s assassination last month, the Lebanese politician had played host to Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader, at his mansion in west Beirut. Mr Hariri had a warning for his old friend: the Syrians were after them. “He told me that in the next two weeks it was either going to be me or him,” Mr Jumblatt told The Times. “Clearly he thought something was going to happen.”
Something did. On February 14 Mr Hariri was killed when 600lb of explosives apparently buried in the road outside St George’s Hotel in Beirut blew up beneath his car.The blast has echoed round the world. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have demonstrated in Beirut, the world has united in demanding Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon and the drive for democracy in the Middle East has been given a huge boost.
Syria has repeatedly protested its innocence and no irrefutable evidence of its involvement has yet emerged. But a reconstruction of events leading to Mr Hariri’s murder, and interviews with at least a dozen Western, Lebanese and even Syrian officials, leave not the slightest doubt that the plot was hatched in Damascus.
The story is damning. It traces the final days of Rafik Hariri and puts forth an irrefutable case for Syrian involvement in his murder. That this is published in the ultimate British establishment paper is also significant. It suggests that unofficially this is the view of the British government.
The gloves are coming off. Matters are moving rapidly toward a conclusion in Lebanon.
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