Anti-Syrians bury slain Lebanese MP, blame Damascus

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Some 3,000 mourners chanted anti-Syrian slogans on Thursday at the funeral of a Lebanese legislator killed in a car bomb attack that deepened Lebanon's political crisis.

Walid Eido was the seventh anti-Syrian figure to be assassinated since February 2005, when former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri was killed in a suicide truck bombing.

Allies of Eido said the killing was Syria's response to a U.N. Security Council vote last week establishing a court to try suspects in the Hariri attack.

But Syria denied any links to Eido's assassination.

"Syria strongly denounces this crime and condemns the campaign of lies by some Lebanese used to accuse Syria after any killing and before an investigation even starts," a Syrian Foreign Ministry statement said.

Eido's death is likely to fuel tension between the government and the opposition, led by the pro-Syrian Shi'ite Hezbollah group, which has also condemned the killing.

As the funeral procession moved slowly through the streets of Beirut, mourners shouted slogans against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his ally, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, yelling: "O Beirut, we want revenge against Lahoud and Bashar."

Eido, a Sunni Muslim, belonged to the majority anti-Syrian parliamentary bloc led by Hariri's son, Saad al-Hariri, which controls the government.

"I tell the criminals that, God willing, you will be punished and dragged to jail like low-lives," Saad al-Hariri told the crowd.

Wednesday's bombing near a Beirut beach club killed Eido, his eldest son, two bodyguards and six passers-by.

DRAMATIC SCENARIO

Parliament member Wael Abou-Faour said the assassination was aimed at cutting the majority of Hariri's bloc, which now has 68 seats in what was originally a parliament of 128 members.

President Lahoud refused to call a by-election when another anti-Syrian MP, cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel, was shot dead in November, saying the government had lost its legitimacy.

"The dramatic scenario is clear: Bashar Assad is assassinating parliamentarians and Emile Lahoud is not allowing (by-elections) to elect others," Abou-Faour told Reuters.

"The parliamentary majority is diminishing and they are trying to change the political equation through assassination."

The United States, a strong backer of the Beirut government, and other Western states have condemned the killing.

"There are many in Lebanon and beyond who continue to facilitate, to deny, to apologize for, or justify Syria's interference in Lebanon. I hope that the shock of the death of another member of parliament ... will force these people to face reality at last," U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman said.

Tension was already high in Lebanon before the attack.

The army has been battling al Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants at a Palestinian refugee camp in the north for more than three weeks. Sporadic clashes continued on Thursday, with troops pounding Fatah al-Islam positions in Nahr al-Bared.

Rescue workers evacuated 45 civilians from the camp. Some 30,000 civilians have fled and more than 144 people have died in the battles, the worst since Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Yara Bayoumy in Beirut and Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Damascus)