A Deadly Message

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When Samir Kassir, a leading Lebanese journalist, met with friends in Beirut for dinner last week, he was in a buoyant mood. Syria had withdrawn its troops from Lebanon, and a series of parliamentary elections that began on May 29 were set to result in a new government led by the anti-Syrian opposition. "Samir was very happy. He was telling us it was a new era for democracy in the region," says Malek Mrowa, a businessman and friend of Kassir's.

The next morning, the 45-year-old Kassir, a university lecturer and columnist for Lebanon's An-Nahar newspaper, was dead, blown to pieces by a bomb planted beneath the driver's seat of his gray Alfa Romeo. It was the first assassination in Lebanon since the murder of former Premier Rafiq Hariri in February, which sparked huge anti-Syrian demonstrations and finally compelled Damascus to disengage from its neighbor at the end of April.

Why was Kassir targeted? He was the most outspoken critic of Syria's stranglehold over Lebanon. "It's a message to say that despite the international pressure, these people are still here and have a violent agenda," says Ziad Majed, deputy president of the opposition Democratic Left. Damascus denied involvement in Kassir's death, but public pressure is mounting on pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud. This week, tens of thousands of protesters plan to converge on the presidential palace to demand that the increasingly isolated Lahoud resign. Kassir would have appreciated the irony that his death could hasten Lahoud's departure.