At least 150,000 Lebanese turned the funeral of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri today into an outpouring of public anger against Syria, blamed by opposition leaders for the bomb that killed him.
Men wept uncontrollably as the procession wound through Beirut streets plastered with posters of the Sunni Muslim billionaire slain in a suspected suicide car bombing on Monday.
Thousands surround the al-Amin mosque where former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri was laid to rest in Beirut today
"Syria out, Syria out," the mourners shouted as people threw rice from balconies onto an ambulance carrying the body of a man who had joined opposition calls for Syria to end a military presence maintained since a 1976 civil war intervention.
In tears, his sons and relatives bore his coffin, draped in a Lebanese flag, from the ambulance into an unfinished mosque Mr Hariri had financed in Beirut's once war-shattered downtown.
Some mourners fainted amid chaotic scenes as the crowd surged around the coffin before Mr Hariri was laid to rest in the grounds of the mosque a few hundred metres from the seafront.
His killing revived memories of the 1975-90 civil war and spotlighted Lebanon's troubled ties with its powerful neighbour Syria.
It has also brought renewed international pressure led by the United States and France for Syria to quit Lebanon.
The family had spurned government offers of a state funeral and made clear officials such as Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud, Prime Minister Omar Karami and Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh were not welcome to attend.
Syria, which has condemned the assassination and denied responsibility, made no public comment today. A security source said at least 150,000 people had joined the funeral march, but other witnesses estimated hundreds of thousands of mourners had taken to the streets in one of Lebanon's biggest and most diverse gatherings for decades.
French President Jacques Chirac, a personal friend of Hariri, flew to Beirut to present condolences and "pay tribute to the person who always personified Lebanon's will for independence, freedom and democracy", his office said.
US President George W. Bush's administration recalled its ambassador to Damascus yesterday for consultations to show its anger at Syria's military and political domination of Lebanon.
Several European and Arab ministers, along with EU foreign policy chief Mr Javier Solana, US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, were among foreign dignitaries in Beirut for the burial.