Tens of thousands of mourners bade farewell on Thursday to victims of a powerful car bombing in Beirut that killed a prominent anti-Syrian legislator and nine others as the Lebanese government - reeling from another blow targeting its supporters - sought international help.
A bomb ripped through Walid Eido's car on Wednesday as he drove from a seaside sports club, also killing his 35-year-old son, two bodyguards and six passers-by.
Thursday's funeral procession swelled to tens of thousands of mourners who escorted coffins carrying the bodies of Eido, his son and one of the bodyguards killed.
The mourners followed ambulances covered with Lebanese flags that drove from the American University Hospital in West Beirut to a mosque at the Shohada Cemetery several kilometers away for a prayer service and internment.
At the mosque, male relatives sobbed and bent to kiss the coffins laid next to one another.
The spiritual leader of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims, Grand Mufti of the Republic Sheik Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, led the prayers, with Saad Hariri, son of assassinated former prime minister Rafik Hariri, at his side.
Saad Hariri, leader of the anti-Syrian majority bloc in parliament to which Eido belonged, said Lebanon would not kneel before the killers and promised they would be brought to justice.
"No one should think that this people will kneel and be frightened," he said. "I tell the criminals, you will be punished and you will be dragged to prisons and will face justice, God willing."
Prime Minister Fuad Saniora has called for an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers and the international community to assist in the investigation of Eido's assassination.
The blast that killed Eido was a new blow to the stability of this conflict-torn nation.
It came just three days after the government, together with the United Nations, started putting together an international tribunal ordered by the U.N. Security Council to try suspects in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut two years ago - a move strongly opposed by Syria and its allies in Lebanon.
Eido was a prominent supporter of the tribunal, a staunch follower of Hariri and the seventh anti-Syrian figure killed in Lebanon in the past two years.
Many in Lebanon have accused Syria of being behind the killings, a claim Damascus denies.
Lebanon's majority coalition blamed Syria for Wednesday's assassination.
Syria controlled Lebanon for 29 years until it was forced out after Hariri's assassination, and its Lebanese opponents believe it is seeking to regain domination by plunging the country into chaos.
