Syrians Protest U.N. Report

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians rallied Monday against a U.N. report implicating Damascus in the killing of Lebanon's former prime minister as the government pulled out all the stops to show it enjoys support at home, if not abroad.

Lebanon's major pro-Syrian groups, Amal and Hezbollah, criticized the U.N. report on Rafik Hariri's assassination, saying Monday in Beirut that a more thorough investigation was needed.

"In order to find the truth, a more serious and judicious investigation is required that is based on facts and tangible evidence, not politics," said a statement by the two parties, which appeal to Lebanon's large Shiite Muslim population.

Their position conflicts with that of Lebanon's Cabinet, which has endorsed the U.N. report. Both Amal and Hezbollah are represented in the coalition government.

The demonstrations in Syria's capital of Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo were a concerted attempt to drum up support for President Bashar Assad ahead of expected international pressure.

The U.N. Security Council is due to discuss the report by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis on Tuesday, and the United States and Britain are pushing for the world body to take a tough stand on Syria.

"With Monday's United Nations Day anniversary of its founding 60 years ago as the backdrop, intense negotiations are taking place to put pressure on Syria to cooperate in the investigation and to close its borders," CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk reported from the U.N.

However, France indicated Monday it would not support sanctions against Syria before the U.N. commission had finished its work.

"There is no divergence" from the United States, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters in Paris. But he said France saw the commission, whose mandate runs to Dec. 15, as a chance to get to the bottom of the matter. "Let us allow that commission to run its full course," Douste-Blazy said.

The U.N. report implicated Syrian officials in the assassination of Hariri, an opponent of Damascus' domination of Lebanon, in a Feb. 14 bombing that also killed 20 other people. Syria countered by discounting the report as an American plot and began a diplomatic drive to explain its position.

In Damascus on Sunday, the Central Command of Syria's National Progressive Front criticized the U.N. report, saying it was based on "suspicions and testimonies of unreliable persons who lack credibility." The front, headed by Assad, is Syria's highest decision-making body. A front statement, carried by Syria's official news agency SANA, said the report contained "contradictions and twisting of facts."

The Syrian government gave students the day off Monday and encouraged civil servants to take part in the demonstrations, which were organized by state-run labor unions. Police diverted traffic to make way for the protesters.

"Mr. Mehlis: we are not murderers," read one banner. "Syria will never be another Iraq," said another in central Damascus' Sabe Bahrat Square, where the crowd chanted: "With our soul and our blood, we redeem you, Bashar!"

State newspapers published editorials condemning the U.N. report, which found Hariri's assassination could not have been carried out without the complicity of Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services. State radio and television ran live reports of the demonstrations, with an anchorman saying Hariri had been "a son of Syria as much as of Lebanon."

Demonstrator Linda Taha, 30, a civil servant, said Syria had nothing to do with Hariri's death.

"The report is politicized in accord with U.S. and Israeli desires to pressure Syria and undermine its steadfastness," Taha said.

Syria has long held it comes under Western pressure because of its uncompromising stand on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and Israel's occupation of Arab land.

"What happened in Iraq should not be repeated in Syria," Taha added.

From a balcony overlooking the square in Damascus, a speaker aroused the crowd with the words: "No! to falsification of facts. No! to politicization of the report. Yes! to Bashar Assad."

"The masses of our people stand united in Arab Damascus today to condemn the Mehlis report, and to declare their absolute rejection of the continuing U.S. threat against Syria," said the speaker, Jamal al-Jish, a state TV employee.

In an attempt to draw pan-Arab solidarity, one banner in the Damascus demonstration said: "Wake up Arabs, your turn will come soon.

The protesters, estimated by The Associated Press to number in the hundreds of thousands in both Damascus and Aleppo, waved big posters of Assad and his father, the late President Hafez Assad.

In Aleppo, the unofficial capital of northern Syria, legislator Ahmed Haj Suleiman said he was taking part "to say 'no' to the report, which is absolutely far from truth."

"We had no differences with Hariri," said Suleiman, adding the U.N. report was based on the testimony of people "known for their hostility to Syria."

In addition, about 100 Syrian lawyers marched to the United Nations' headquarters in New York over the weekend to protest the report. They handed a U.N. official a letter addressed to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, which said the report contained "gross legal mistakes and violations of the simplest rules and measures of judicial authorities."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw urged nations to take a strong position on the U.N. report.

"The report indicated that people of a high level of this Syrian regime were implicated," Straw told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday. "We also have evidence ... of false testimony being given by senior people in the regime. This is very serious.

Rice called for "a firm response" from the international community.

A Syrian official, deputy Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, said the pressure on Syria was because of America's aim of dominating the region. He denied that he had threatened the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, days before Hariri was assassinated as the U.N. report said.

"This is totally untrue," Moallem said in the first response by a Syrian official named in the report.

The U.S.-British call for action underlined the growing pressure on Syria as it faces possible action by the U.N. Security Council later this week.

Straw said earlier that U.N. Security council members would consider sanctions against Syria, but it is not clear whether the United States and Britain would receive the support of members such as Russia, an old ally of Syria.