On Valentine’s Day 2005, "unknown" persons murdered Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri with 19 other souls using 1,000 kilos of TNT, according to the UN.

Hariri, a Sunni, was an advocate for a prosperous Lebanon that invested his own money in Lebanon's post-civil war economic reconstruction. However, he had a competitor for 'hearts and minds' in Hezbollah's street- savvy, Shi'ite social service terror militia backed by Iran and Syria.

The late Hariri's son, Mr. Said Hariri yesterday accused Syria's Assad regime of assassinating his father, and of attempting to assassinate Lebanon. The U.N. has not named suspects in the investigation of Hariri's death, however, implies it has "persons of interest" to interview and has set a Dutch location for a tribunal to try Lebanon's lawless.

A U.N. Security Council resolution likely encouraged Said Hariri's outcry with these findings:

...there was a distinct lack of commitment on the part of the Lebanese authorities to investigate the crime effectively, and that this investigation was not carried out in accordance with acceptable international standards.

...It (Hariri's assassination) seems to have “unlocked the gates of political upheavals” that were simmering throughout the last year. 

The Lebanese security services have demonstrated serious and systematic negligence in carrying out the duties usually performed by a professional national security apparatus...and have, therefore, contributed to the propagation of a culture of intimidation and impunity.

...Syrian Military Intelligence shares this responsibility to the extent of its involvement in running the security services in Lebanon.

Twenty-four years ago, "unknown" assassins shot the gentleman President of the American University of Beirut with a silencer-fitted pistol. Hezbollah's forerunner and subsidiary Islamic Jihad called in responsibility according to Malcolm Kerr's widow, Ann Z. Kerr, in this bio.

It is parallel that the title of Dr. Kerr's renowned book The Arab Cold War should track what I think has been one huge bad-habit generator : the Cold War habit of the super and great powers tolerating constant Syrian and Israeli intereference in Lebanon in the name of averting escalating conflicts to cataclysm.

If we were to ask any of these attackers of the innocent what specific goal was accomplished for Islam or Allah in the killing of Hariri or Kerr, I'll bet you the answer is: "unknown."