Violence erupted in downtown Beirut yesterday as protesters tried to storm the offices of prime minister Najib Mikati after the funeral of an assassinated intelligence chief whose death they blame on Syria.

A coalition of Lebanese groups, angered by the recent assassination of a prominent anti-Syrian journalist, called today for the ousting of Lebanon’s pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud.

Father-of-six Rafik Hariri, who died in a Beirut bomb blast today, was a business tycoon who became one of Lebanon’s most influential politicians and served as its prime minister for most of its post-civil war years. He was 60.