Grief-stricken relatives, colleagues and hundreds of Lebanese poured into the central Beirut Saturday for the funeral of a prominent anti-Syrian journalist who was assassinated in a bombing attack.

Samir Qaseer, 45, a front page columnist at Lebanon's leading daily An-Nahar who had for years called for an end to Syria's influence, was killed Thursday in an explosion in the mainly Christian eastern neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh.

Brandishing red-and-white Lebanese flags and Qaseer's portraits,mourners watched in silence a flag-draped coffin carried from Qaseer's office building in the central Martyrs' Square to a nearby Greek Orthodox church for burial.

Qaseer's wife Giselle Khoury, working for the al-Arabiya TV, and influential opposition Druze leader Walid Jumblatt were among the mourners.

The killing of Qasser, who held a dual French-Lebanese citizenship, prompted a new wave of call for an international probe into the incident, reminiscent of a similar call after the Feb. 14 assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati vowed Thursday to take all necessary measures to investigate the killing, saying the authorities were collecting information about the murder and state prosecutors have been instructed to invoke all judicial powers to bring those responsible to justice.

Lebanese opposition quickly blamed Syria and its Lebanese allies for Qaseer's death, calling for the resignation of pro-Damascus President Emile Lahoud.

"The opposition sees the response to this new crime should be...the resignation of the president as the effective head of the security and intelligence regime," said a statement issued after a meeting of opposition leaders.

Syria rejected accusations that it was behind the killing, accusing such allegations of "seeking to satisfy the enemies of Syria, Lebanon and all Arabs in general," the official SUNA news agency reported Thursday.

Syria completed a pullout of its 14,000 troops from neighboring Lebanon at the end of April in line with a UN resolution calling for the end of foreign military presence in Lebanon.

Thursday's killing also came four days after the first stage of Lebanon's parliamentary elections kicked off across the country.

The elections, panning from May 29 to June 19, are the first in the country in 30 years without a foreign military presence.

Source: Xinhua