Thousands of people marched in Beirut today behind the coffin of a slain anti-Syrian politician.
Some 10,000 people took part in the funeral procession for George Hawi, a former leader of the Lebanese Communist Party and long-time critic of Syria's role in Lebanon, who was killed on Tuesday when a bomb exploded in his car.
Mr Hawi, also a leader of the national resistance to Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, was the second anti-Syrian figure to be assassinated this month. Newspaper columnist Samir Kassir was killed on June 2nd in a similar attack.
Nationalist songs and recordings of Mr Hawi speeches blared from loudspeakers as the crowd, holding up red-white-and-green Lebanese flags and red Communist flags, walked silently behind the hearse as the cortege made its way to a church in central Beirut.
Only sporadic chants of "Communist, Communist," were heard.
The assassination this week of Mr Hawi has intensified calls for Lebanon's pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud to step down.
A coalition of groups that swept parliamentary elections this month after leading a campaign against Syria's military and intelligence presence in Lebanon accused Mr Lahoud on Thursday of responsibility for political assassinations and called on him to step down.