Lebanon: Thousands Mourn Killing Of Spy Chief

Thousands of people have gathered in the Lebanese capital Beirut for the funeral of a top intelligence official who was assassinated by a car bomb.

Lebanese forces set up road blocks and cordoned off Beirut's Martyrs' Square as well as boosting security in the capital.

Brigadier General Wissam al Hassan's coffin will be brought to the square for burial.

Al Hassan, 47, was a powerful opponent of Syria in Lebanon and headed an investigation over the summer that led to the arrest of former information minister Michel Samaha, a politican who was one of Syria's most loyal allies.

He was among eight people killed in the attack on Friday, which many have blamed on the Syrian regime.

Wissam al Hassan was killed by a massive car bomb on Friday

Even before the bombing, the civil war in neighboring Syria had set off violence in Lebanon and deepened tensions between supporters and opponents of President Bashar Assad's regime.

The attack heightened fears that Lebanon could easily plunge back into cycles of sectarian violence and reprisal that have haunted it for decades.

Dozens of anti-Syrian protesters erected eight tents near the cabinet headquarters in central Beirut, saying they will stay until Prime Minister Najib Mikati's government, which is dominated by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and its allies, resigns.

Hezbollah is Syria's most powerful ally in Lebanon, which for much of the past 30 years has lived under Syrian military and political domination.

Syria's hold on Lebanon began to slip in 2005, when former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, an opponent of Syria, was assassinated by a truck bomb along Beirut's Mediterranean waterfront.

Syria denied any role, but broad public outrage in Lebanon expressed in massive street protests forced Damascus to withdraw its tens of thousands of troops from the country.

For years after the pullouts, there was a string of attacks on anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon without any trials for those responsible.

Al Hassan will be buried in Martyrs' Square next to the late Hariri.

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