On Monday, 88 pounds of TNT packed in a car blew Gebron Tueni's [ journalist, lawmaker and opponent of Syria] armored sport-utility vehicle over the side of a hill, killing him and two others. It was the latest in a string of attacks that have killed and wounded some of Lebanon's most prominent opponents of Syria. Tueni had returned only the day before from France, where he had spent weeks, on and off, fearing an attempt on his life.

His death came hours before a U.N. investigator submitted a report to the Security Council on the Feb. 14 car bomb assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Detlev Mehlis, a German prosecutor who is leading the probe, said he had uncovered new evidence substantiating charges of Syrian involvement in Hariri's death. It said Syria had been slow to cooperate with the investigation despite a Security Council resolution, had burned intelligence documents related to the assassination, and had intimidated a key witness.

Tueni was a newly elected lawmaker and the publisher of al-Nahar, a leading Lebanese newspaper founded by his grandfather. Hailing from a prominent Greek Orthodox family and long a figure in Lebanese politics, his profile rose during protests in Beirut after Hariri's assassination that helped force Syria's withdrawal. Another leader of those protests, journalist Samir Kassir of the same newspaper, was killed on June 2 by a bomb planted in his Alfa Romeo.