Beirut's Great Mystery

The summons came down from Damascus last August, informing Rafiq Hariri, then the Prime Minister of Lebanon, that he was wanted for a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad. For years Hariri had strived to maintain cordial relations with Lebanon's more powerful neighbor, acquiescing to Syria's domination of Lebanese politics as the price of Syria's role in ending Lebanon's 15-year civil war. But by last summer Assad suspected that Hariri was behind an international campaign to end Syria's occupation of Lebanon, and so he decided to warn Hariri not to oppose Syrian plans to reassert its influence. In an exchange Hariri later recounted to associates and friends interviewed by TIME, he protested, telling Assad, "I have been a friend of Syria for 20 years," to which Assad replied coldly, "I have only known you for four years." Then Assad issued what Hariri interpreted as a personal threat if he did not bow to Syrian wishes. "I will break Lebanon over your head," Assad said.

Those words would haunt Hariri for the rest of his life. Seven weeks after his meeting in Damascus, he resigned. Almost four months after that, he was dead, assassinated on Valentine's Day in rebuilt downtown Beirut, the jewel of his political achievements, as he prepared to launch a bid to reclaim power and rid Lebanon of Syrian influence. In death, Hariri managed to obtain the prize he so desperately sought in the final months of his life. After his assassination a million Lebanese poured into the streets, galvanizing international opinion against Damascus and forcing the withdrawal of Syrian troops and some of the intelligence operatives who had stifled Lebanese life for three decades. The Bush Administration has used the scenes of Lebanese citizens demanding independence and free elections as vindication of its push for democracy in the Arab world. This week 3 million Lebanese voters begin going to the polls to elect a government that the U.S. hopes will be the first in 29 years free of Syrian control. And in the saga's final, Shakespearean twist, it is Hariri's son Saad, 35, a political novice who briefly fled the country after Rafiq's death, who is favored to become the next Prime Minister.

And yet while Hariri is a martyr who transcends Lebanon's sectarian divides—his grave in downtown Beirut has become the city's most popular tourist attraction—the circumstances surrounding his assassination are still cloaked in mystery. The bombing site remains cordoned off by police tape, the street littered with the gnarled remains of cars burned by the blast. A U.N. fact-finding mission concluded in March that the Syrian regime bore "primary responsibility" for the political circumstances leading up to Hariri's assassination, though Damascus has denied any involvement. A U.N. team arrived in Lebanon at the end of May to begin a formal investigation, but it's unclear whether the probe will finger the perpetrators.