Lebanon mourned assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri today as opposition leaders bluntly implicated Syria in an attack that Lebanese authorities said might have been a suicide bombing.
The Sunni Muslim billionaire was killed in a car bomb blast in Beirut yesterday.
"This (Lebanese) regime is backed by the Syrians. This is the regime of terrorists and terrorism that was able yesterday to wipe out Rafik al-Hariri," Druze leader Mr Walid Jumblatt said after presenting his condolences to Mr Hariri's family.
"I charge the Lebanese-Syrian police regime with the responsibility for Mr Hariri's death," he said.
Exiled former general Mr Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian and long-time foe of Syria, said Damascus was indirectly, if not directly, responsible for the politician's killing.
"There are many Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services working in Beirut and they control everything in the country. I don't think that if they were taking care of Hariri he would be attacked so easily," Mr Aoun said.
Syrian Vice President Mr Abdel-Halim Khaddam was among those who filed into Mr Hariri's Beirut home to pay condolences.
"This crime targeted the Lebanese dream, Lebanese security and Lebanese peace," said Mr Khaddam, a personal friend of Mr Hariri. Mosque minarets across Beirut blared out readings from the Koran.
Streets were deserted as schools, shops and offices shut for three days of official mourning. The Lebanese army went on alert ahead of Mr Hariri's funeral, planned for tomorrow.
Mr Hariri (60) who masterminded reconstruction after the 1975-90 civil war, was killed along with 14 other people when a car bomb ripped through his motorcade in Beirut's seafront luxury hotel district. About 135 people were wounded in the biggest explosion since the war.
Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh said a suicide car bomber might have carried out the attack, which gouged a crater in the middle of the road as Mr Hariri's convoy drove by. "It could have been that someone was driving the car and it might have a been a suicide (attacker) who blew himself up," he told a news conference, citing initial investigations.
A previously unknown Islamist group said yesterday it had carried out a suicide attack against Hariri, who also holds Saudi citizenship, because he supported the Saudi royal family. Hours later Lebanese security forces said they had raided the Beirut home of a man they identified as a Palestinian who had read the videotaped claim of responsibility.
A security source said Mr Ahmed Tayseer Abu Adas was not in the house. Mr Hariri resigned as prime minister in October after falling out with Syria over its role in extending the term of his political rival, President Emile Lahoud.
He then joined opposition leaders in calling for Syria to withdraw its 14,000 troops and stop interfering in Lebanese affairs, as demanded by a UN Security Council resolution. Political tension had already been building up in Lebanon as campaigning got under way for parliamentary elections in May which were widely seen as a test of Syria's influence.