Prime Minister Fuad Saniora asked the United Nations secretary-general in a letter to add the Ghanem assassination to an international probe into Hariri's slaying and other political crimes in Lebanon. Schools, universities and banks across the country as well as many businesses in Christian areas of Beirut and in the Mount Lebanon region north of the capital were closed Thursday for a day of mourning and to observe a strike called by the Phalange Party. A funeral was to be held Friday.
Saniora pledged that Lebanon would not be cowed by the assassination and would press ahead to pick a president. "The hand of terror will not win and will not succeed in subduing us and silencing us," he said in a statement late Wednesday carried by the official news agency. "The Lebanese will not retreat and will have a new president elected by lawmakers, no matter how big the conspiracy was."