'Something was going to happen

'Something was going to happen – it was going to be me or him'BY NICHOLAS BLANFORD, RICHARD BEESTON AND JAMES BONEAn investigation by The Times finds clear evidence that Syria assassinated Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese politician
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 Times has learnt that Mr Hariri had enraged the Syrians by inspiring a UN resolution demanding that Syria stop interfering in Lebanon. US and UN officials repeatedly warned Syria not to harm Mr Hariri in the months before his death. In mid-January, under pressure from Damascus, the Lebanese Government withdrew his 70-strong security detail, and immediately after his death the scene of the bombing was swept to remove any evidence of Syrian complicity. “There does seem to be no other scenario,” a senior Western diplomat said. The murder of Mr Hariri, an immensely wealthy Lebanese businessman who had rebuilt his country after a 15-year civil war, followed the collapse of his relations with President Assad of Syria last summer. In August, under pressure from America to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, Syria had engineered changes to the Lebanese constitution to allow its ally, President Lahoud, to extend his term of office. Mr Hariri, then Prime Minister, was a bitter rival of Mr Lahoud and strongly opposed the move. But Mr Assad summoned him to Damascus. In a 15-minute meeting the Syrian leader told him that the decision had been taken and that he was expected to vote for it in the Lebanese parliament. Mr Hariri returned to Lebanon and drove straight to his summer residence in the mountains above Beirut. A former aide recalled that his mood was very bleak. “To them (the Syrians), we are all ants,” he quoted Mr Hariri as saying. But Mr Hariri had his revenge. Using his close ties to President Bush and President Chirac of France, he secretly helped to bring Resolution 1559, calling for Syria to withdraw its forces from Lebanon, before the UN Security Council. “1559 was his baby. He was very proud of it,” a UN official said, though Mr Hariri’s aides played down his involvement. On October 1 Marwan Hamade, a former minister and friend of Mr Jumblatt, was seriously wounded when his car was bombed in a Beirut street. His bodyguard was killed. The bombing was interpreted as a warning to Mr Jumblatt. “Hariri was in Paris at the time and went crazy when he heard the news,” the aide said.

Two weeks later, Mr Hariri resigned as Prime Minister. He instantly became a magnet for growing opposition to Syria and was expected to use his political and financial muscle to lead the anti-Syrian camp in May’s parliamentary elections. After the assassination attempt, Paris and Washington sent messages to Damascus warning the Syrians not to harm opposition leaders, specifically Mr Hariri and Mr Jumblatt. Richard Armitage, the US Deputy Secretary of State, reiterated that warning during a meeting with Mr Assad in Damascus on January 2.
But in late January Mr Hariri’s security detail, 70 members of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces, a paramilitary police unit, was withdrawn. He was repeatedly attacked in the media by pro-Syrian figures. Several workers from one of his charities were arrested. Mr Hariri was confident that the Syrians would not dare to touch him because he was protected by Washington and Paris. “Hariri was not worried at the time,” his former aide said. “He used to say, ‘You only die when you die’.” But that sense of invulnerability was soon to change. On February 10, Terje Roed-Larsen, a UN envoy, met Mr Assad in Damascus and told the Syrian leader to rein in his intelligence apparatus in Lebanon. He tried to persuade Mr Assad to hold a secret meeting with Mr Hariri to reconcile their differences, fearing that there would be further violence if the situation was not quickly defused. “Larsen knew if there was no dialogue, it would end badly,” a UN source said. “He knew he had to move fast.” That night he saw Mr Hariri in Beirut for dinner. The Lebanese politician was prepared to talk to the Syrians, but only as an equal and not as a subordinate. Two days later Mr Hariri met Mr Jumblatt at his home, and correctly predicted his own death. The huge blast shortly after noon on St Valentine’s Day was heard all over Beirut — a thunderous explosion that reverberated around the streets and into the hills, rattling windows and bringing anxious Lebanese out on to their balconies. A column of smoke climbed into the sky from the city centre, marking the spot where Mr Hariri and 18 others perished. Lebanese security forces swiftly sealed off the area. “They cleared up the crime scene after the explosion,” one senior British diplomat said. “They are hampering the investigation.” Initially they tried to pin the killings on Islamic militants and said that a suicide bomber was responsible. Three Syrian ministers interviewed by The Times this month all denied that Damascus killed Mr Hariri. But none put forward a convincing alternative theory, even though Syria has a vast intelligence network in Lebanon.