Robert Fisk is a journalist for the Independent newspaper based in Beirut. He knew Rafik Hariri and was one of the first people to get to the site of the attack.

Robert Fisk, is there much doubt that this killing was politically motivated?

ROBERT FISK: I don't see any other reason why it was perpetrated. Rafik Hariri had many friends, including President Chirac of France. He had many enemies and those enemies spanned everyone from real estate businessmen in Beirut to political enemies in the Lebanese Parliament or the Lebanese Government, to certain sections of the Syrian governing elite, as well as friends in all parties. 

I mean one of the strange things about assassinations in Lebanon is that you can always find people with enough enemies to want to kill them, and enough friends to stay alive. 

It's a very serious blow however to Lebanon for a number of reasons. One is that this was the man who was symbolic of the rebirth of Lebanon. He held ten per cent of the shares in the company rebuilding the centre of Beirut. So tremendous economic consequences for Lebanon, political consequences and of course, given the anger in the Sunni Muslim community from which he comes, potentially very violent consequences too.

TONY EASTLEY: Why are so many links being drawn between his death and the problems that he had with Syria?

ROBERT FISK: Oh, very simply because the UN Security Council Resolution 1559 calls for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, and that means the end of Syrian power over the Lebanese Government. 

And Hariri, although he had many Syrian friends – indeed he paid for the palace of president Hafez al-Assad, the late president who's son Bashar is now the ruler of Syria. Nonetheless, what's being rumoured around here, and I heard it, you know, a week ago, to be the secret leader of the Lebanese opposition to the Syrian presence, which includes Christian Maronites, the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and other notables in Parliament. 

So of course, obviously, many Lebanese are saying well hold on a second, if this guy was quietly leading the opposition to the Syrians, then who's interest is it to kill him? I'd have to add however, that I think that might be a little bit simplistic. There are other areas of hostility towards Hariri, including in Lebanon, who might have had a hand in wanting him dead.

TONY EASTLEY: Now you heard the massive explosion which left a huge crater in the road. It must have given you flashbacks to the civil war?

ROBERT FISK: Yes, I didn't just hear it, I actually saw the blast wave – a kind of white, misty ribbon come down the highway. I was only a few hundred metres away. And then all my shutters blew in. 

I knew immediately it was a bomb. Actually, I have to say, I looked first of all up to the sky, because Israeli aircraft often overfly Beirut and you hear the soundwave being broken. But this was too big, and I ran out on the cornice and I saw this great black stain of smoke moving across the city, and I realised it was a bomb. 

It was a huge bomb, it must have been. And I ran down the road and there were no ambulances, no fire brigade, no soldiers, no policemen, just screaming, wounded people and blazing cars, 22 cars on fire. I saw people, dead people burning in some of the cars. There was a woman's hand in a glove on the road. A corpse on a pavement, and the crater was 15 foot deep. 

I climbed down into it, and the little bits of the car bomb were only an inch long. I mean that was the power. We're talking about 350 kilos I should think. Command detonated, in other words it wasn't a suicide bomb. It was someone watching the prime minister's car and making sure he was level with the explosives when he pressed a button and caused the detonation. Well planned, well co-ordinated. Must have taken a long time to set up. 

TONY EASTLEY: Robert Fisk, a journalist for the Independent newspaper based in Beirut.