The killing of 'Mr Lebanon': Rafik Hariri assassinated in Beirut bomb blast by Robert Fisk

I saw the blast wave coming down the Corniche. My home is only a few hundred metres from the detonation and my first instinct was to look up, to search for the high-altitude Israeli planes that regularly break the sound barrier over Beirut. There were customers coming bloodied from their broken-windowed restaurants and the great cancerous stain of smoke rising from the road outside the St George Hotel.