LEBANON - Jun 2 - Beirut Car Bomb Kills Anti-Syrian Media Critic.

A prominent anti-Syrian Lebanese columnist Samir Kassir is assassinated in a Beirut car explosion that is immediately blamed by his friends and colleagues on Damascus and its remaining allies in Lebanon. The killing of Kassir who was known for his strident criticism of Syria in the leading daily an-Nahar newspaper, comes a month after Syria was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon following a wave of street protests provoked by the February assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the former PM. The well-planned explosion that ripped through Kassir's car outside his home in the Christian district of Ashrafiyyeh is likely to raise the international pressure on the Damascus regime. It coincides with increased tensions within Syria. On Jun 1, the body of a prominent Syrian Kurdish theologian, Shaikh Mohammad Maashouq Al Khaznawi, who had been missing since early May, was handed to his family. His killing provoked accusations by some Kurdish politicians of government involvement and demands for an investigation from human rights groups, including the London-based Amnesty International. A Syrian government minister Buthayna Shaaban, said the death of the Shaikh was "a great loss" for Syria and that the Khaznawi family had expressed satisfaction with the way the authorities were dealing with the case. A spokesman for the banned Kurdish Yakiti party, however, denied this. In Lebanon, Kassir's killing shocked a country in the midst of staggered parliamentary elections the first since the Syrian troop departure and that is still recovering from the assassination of Hariri. US State Sec Condoleezza Rice, condemned the killing as a "heinous act" that was intended to intimidate the Lebanese people as they went through the elections. Anti-Syrian opposition politicians in Beirut said that although Lebanon's pro-Syrian security chiefs had recently resigned, "their acolytes were still active". Some opposition leaders called for the immediate resignation of the pro-Syrian Pres Emile Lahoud. Long before the recent anti-Syrian demonstrations, Kassir had faced years of harassment and threats from pro-Syrian security chiefs in Lebanon because of his virulent criticism of the Syrian regime and what he described as the police state set up by Syria in Lebanon. Kassir was of Palestinian descent and had his passport confiscated in March 2001 by the authorities in what he said was part of a campaign to intimidate him. But he never stopped writing and became a main player in the "popular uprising for independence", as the anti-Syrian protests following Hariri's assassination were described by the opposition. He also maintained close ties with Syrian dissidents.