Syria, Lebanon involved in Hariri killing: UN

The exhaustive report into the Feb. 14 car bomb that killed Hariri and 20 others was issued to the UN Security Council late Thursday and will almost certainly inflame tensions in the region.

The Security Council is likely to use the findings to renew pressure on Syria to ease its continued influence on Lebanon. The council is expected to discuss the report on Tuesday, and may consider sanctions against Syria.

While the report from chief investigator Detlev Mehlis stopped short of fingering Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle, it accused the regime of failing to cooperate in the probe and alleged Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa lied in a letter to the Mehlis' commission.

It also cites one witness as saying Assad's brother-in-law, who is the Syrian intelligence chief, set up a false confession.

Syria rejected the report.

The decision to assassinate Hariri "could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials and could not have been further organised without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services," the report said.

At the time of Hariri's assassination, Syria had about 14,000 troops in Lebanon and essentially controlled the country along with its Lebanese government allies.

Mehlis was careful not to assign blame but cites witness testimony that strongly implicates several officials suspected of conspiring to assassinate Hariri. Lebanon has already arrested four of them, all Lebanese generals close to Syria.

The report also raised questions about Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, who received a phone call minutes before the deadly blast from the brother of a prominent member of a pro-Syrian group. The same man also called one of four generals arrested, Brig. Gen. Raymond Azar, who at the time was head of Lebanon's military intelligence.

Lahoud's office said it "categorically denies" that the president received such a phone call.

The 53-page report outlines Hariri's worsening relationship with Syrian officials and said the motive for his killing appeared to have been political. Hariri had fallen out with Syria and eventually resigned in October 2004, a month after a decision to change Lebanon's laws and extend Lahoud's term.