ARABS-UN - Dec 14 - UN Meets Over Series Of Killings In Lebanon.

The Security Council meets to discuss a resolution extending the term of the UN investigation into the February assassination of the former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri, and expands its scope to include recent politically motivated killings. Drafted by France and co-sponsored by Britain and the US, the resolution gives the inquiry another six months, to June 15, and raises the possibility of another extension. It also expresses "deep concern" at evidence of Syrian obstruction of the investigators and demands that Damascus co-operate "unambiguously and immediately" with requests for assistance. It is scheduled to be put to a vote on Dec 15. Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor who has led the inquiry for six months, is stepping down to return to his work in Berlin, but Sec Gen Kofi Annan said Dec 13 that the work of the group would continue uninterrupted, and that the UN was actively looking for Mehlis's replacement. On Dec 12, Mehlis delivered a 25-page report to the Council saying that fresh evidence had bolstered his earlier judgment that top-ranking officials of the Syrian intelligence services, in collusion with their Lebanese counterparts, were behind Hariri's killing, and that Syria was trying to stall his investigation. Hariri, who was opposed to Syria's control over Lebanese politics, was killed, along with 22 others, when a bomb exploded as his car was traveling along a street in central Beirut. Expected to attract unanimous support from the 15-member panel, the resolution comes in response to a formal request from the Lebanese PM Fouad Saniora. After the car-bomb assassination in Beirut on Dec 12 of Gebran Tueni, a prominent journalist and member of Parliament, Saniora added to the request that the inquiry be broadened to include new victims of political terror. The resolution broadens the commission's mandate to include the investigation of a series of attacks on journalists and politicians in Lebanon that began in October, 2004. The Lebanese leader also asked that the Security Council set up an independent tribunal to judge the Hariri murder, but the resolution includes only a request that Annan "help the Lebanese government identify the nature and scope of the international assistance needed in this regard". The measure also makes no mention of any potential sanctions, but it asks for two-month reports on the level of Syrian compliance. An earlier resolution, passed unanimously on Oct. 31, had threatened Syria with unspecified "further action" if Syria did not co-operate "fully and unconditionally" with the inquiry. Mehlis's report said that while Syria deliberately delayed many aspects of his inquiry, it did, in the end, make five officials available for questioning at UN offices in Vienna earlier this month. The Security Council apparently accepted this as enough to forestall a new threat of punitive actions. But the US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, warned Damascus not to "think they can try a 5 percent solution and find that we're satisfied with it because we are more emphatically not satisfied with it". The Syrian ambassador, Fayssal Mekdad, insisted Dec 13 Syria was offering full co-operation. He denied claims in the Mehlis report that key records had been burned and that a principal witness had been intimidated, by the arrests of his family members, into recanting his testimony to investigators. Pledging Dec 13 that the council would keep "unrelenting" pressure on Damascus, Bolton said: On the part of the US, there is absolutely no wavering from the proposition that Syria is not going to get away with obstructing this investigation. It's not going to cover up the actions of its senior officials and it's not going to escape the consequences".