Syria under pressure: the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Al Hariri and the apparent suicide of Syrian interior minister Ghazi Kanaan have turned the international spotlight on Syria's role in the Middle East and its relations with the wider world.(LEBANON)

Publication: The Middle East

Publication Date: 01-DEC-05

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Lebanese popular opposition to Syrian involvement in its affairs reached a crescendo after the bomb blast in February that killed Rafiq Hariri and 20 others, while a United Nations investigation last month found evidence of both Syrian and Lebanese involvement in the attack. Damascus is now considering its options as pressure mounts from all directions.

President Bashar Al Assad made an impassioned speech at Damascus University on 10 November in which he castigated Lebanese officials and other "foreign powers" for attempting to drive a wedge between Beirut and Damascus for their own purposes. The killing of Rafiq Hariri had been exploited to further these ends, President Assad insisted.

Hariri had opposed Syrian interference in Lebanon and had increasingly come into conflict with Lebanon's president, Emile Lahoud, a strong ally of Damascus. Consequently, the finger of blame for Hariri's murder was pointed at Syria and pro-Syrian Lebanese elements.

The Syrian government continued to deny any involvement in the assassination and Damascus insisted interior minister Ghazi Kanaan later committed suicide because of the shame that allegations of Syrian involvement brought upon him personally and his country, not because he was involved.

Kanaan had joined the Syrian cabinet in October 2004, after serving for 20 years as the head of Syrian intelligence in Beirut, where he played a leading role in shaping Syrian policy in Lebanon.

Many analysts...

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