Rafic Hariri

Killed on 14 February 2005 in Beirut by a truck bomb that destroyed his convoy; the former prime minister murder triggered the Cedar Revolution and the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon.

Overview

Hariri, the construction billionaire who rebuilt Beirut after the civil war as prime minister through the 1990s, had broken with the Syrian occupation elite over the extended presidency of Emile Lahoud. A one ton truck bomb on the seafront near the St George hotel killed him and twenty-one others, wounded hundreds, and left a crater; the outrage united Lebanon in the Cedar Revolution of March 2005, and Syria withdrew its army after twenty-nine years. The UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the first to try a case of terrorism at international level, convicted in absentia one member of Hezbollah, Salim Ayyash, in 2020, acquitted three others, and confirmed the conviction on appeal in 2022; Hezbollah denies any role. Four Hezbollah suspects were never arrested; the masterminds were never identified.