BEIRUT - International pressure mounted on Syria to ease its grip on Lebanon as stunned Lebanese prepared to bury assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri on February 16.

Black flags flew from buildings and electricity poles, and Beirut's streets were plastered with posters of the Sunni Muslim billionaire who was killed in a car bomb attack on February 14.

Security was tight before Hariri's funeral and burial, set for around noon (1000 GMT) at a mosque in central Beirut, once a battlefield turned into a smart area by the former premier.

"They feared you, they killed you," read a banner near Hariri's house, where his coffin - draped in a Lebanese flag - was taken for the start of the funeral procession. Female members of his family, all in black, wept over the coffin.

The bombing, which the authorities suspect was a suicide attack, has revived memories of a 1975-90 civil war and spotlighted Lebanon's troubled ties with its powerful neighbour Syria.

US Anger

US President George W Bush's administration recalled its ambassador to Damascus on February 15 for urgent consultations to show its anger at Syria's military presence and political power-brokering role in Lebanon.

US officials said they were considering new sanctions on Syria because of its refusal to withdraw its 14,000 troops from Lebanon and Washington's belief that Damascus lets Palestinian militants and Iraqi insurgents operate on its soil.

"The Syrian Government is unfortunately on a path right now where relations are not improving, but are worsening," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Washington. "We will continue to consider what other options are at our disposal."

The White House said it was too early to tell who assassinated Hariri.

Syrian Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam, who went to Hariri's home to pay condolences, said: "This crime targeted the Lebanese dream, Lebanese security and Lebanese peace."

The UN Security Council asked Secretary-General Kofi Annan to urgently look into the killing, a measure the United States hopes will lead to further action by the world body.

Lebanese opposition figures did not hesitate to point an accusing finger at Damascus.

"This (Lebanese) regime is backed by the Syrians. This is the regime of terrorists and terrorism that was able yesterday to wipe out Rafik al-Hariri," Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said after presenting his condolences to Hariri's family in Beirut on February 15.

"I charge the Lebanese-Syrian police regime with the responsibility for Hariri's death," he said.

Street protests

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in the northern Sunni port city of Tripoli and hundreds demonstrated in Hariri's home town of Sidon, shouting slogans blaming Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the killing, witnesses said.

A crowd of mourners assaulted Syrian workers with sticks and stones near a house belonging to Hariri's brother in Sidon, injuring five of them. A Syrian truck was set on fire in north Lebanon.

Exiled former general Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian and long-time foe of Syria, said Damascus was indirectly, if not directly, responsible for Hariri's killing.

"There are many Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services working in Beirut and they control everything in the country. I don't think that if they were taking care of Hariri he would be attacked so easily," said Aoun.

The Bush administration wanted UN Security Council members to consider measures that could be taken against the perpetrators of the assassination, said Richard Grenell, spokesman for the US mission to the United Nations.

In a statement, the Security Council asked Annan to report "urgently on the circumstances, causes and consequences of this terrorist act."

Hariri, 60, who masterminded postwar reconstruction, was killed along with 14 others when the car bomb ripped through his motorcade in Beirut's seafront luxury hotel district.

Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh said a suicide car bomber might have carried out the attack, which gouged a large crater in the middle of the road.

A previously unknown Islamist group said on February 14 it had carried out a suicide attack against Hariri, who also held Saudi citizenship, because he supported the Saudi royal family.

Hariri resigned as prime minister in October after falling out with Syria over its role in extending the term of his political rival, President Emile Lahoud.

He then joined opposition leaders in calling for Syria to withdraw its troops and stop interfering in Lebanese affairs, as demanded by the UN Security Council.

(Agencies via Xinhua)