UNITED NATIONS, Feb 14 (AFP) - UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Monday's killing of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri in a Beirut bombing was from "a chapter in Lebanon's history" that he had hoped was over.
"The secretary general condemns in the strongest terms those who instigated, planned and executed this callous political assassination," Annan's spokesman said in a statement.
"Such acts are a reversion to a chapter in Lebanon's history that he had hoped was long past. It is imperative that the already fragile situation in the region should not be further destabilised," the statement said.
Annan also praised Hariri for helping to rebuild Lebanon after its 1975-1990 bloody civil war, and called the five-time premier's death "an immense loss to Lebanon, the region and the international community."
Hariri and nine others were killed when a massive explosion ripped through his motorcade.
Media reports said the blast was caused by a car bomb and that the dead included bodyguards of the 60-year-old Hariri, a rags-to riches Sunni Muslim who resigned as prime minister four months ago in a row over the Syrian dominance of Lebanon's political affairs.
"There's a red flag. It's a warning signal," UN spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters. "(Annan) urges Lebanese to pull back, think hard and not sink back into the old days of civil war."
Ambassador Joel Adechi of Benin, this month's president of the UN Security Council, said the 15-nation council had asked the United Nations for a report on the bombing.
It was not known how soon that could be completed or if Terje Roed-Larsen, who reports to Annan on implementation of a Security Council resolution that called for Syria to pull its troops from Lebanon, would write it.
Adechi said the council would issue a formal statement on Hariri's death on Tuesday but added council members, at a meeting on Monday morning, had expressed "concern" with the implications of this "terrorist assassination."
At the White House, the United States said it would work with the Security Council in an effort to "punish those responsible" for Hariri's killing.
02/14/2005 18:05 GMT - AFP