UN team investigates Beirut blast

The team will investigate the cause of the blast

A three-member UN team has arrived in Lebanon to investigate the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The team was assembled by the Irish government after a request from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for help to investigate the 14 February attack.

Led by Deputy Police Commissioner Peter Fitzgerald, the team is expected to complete initial inquiries in a month.

Lebanon had rejected calls for an international investigation into the massive bomb attack in Beirut.

But the Syrian-backed government has agreed to co-operate with the UN mission.

The team includes Chief Superintendent Martin Donnellan and Superintendent Pat Leahy. They are said to be assisted by two UN advisers.

They are expected to stay in the region for several weeks and report their initial findings to Mr Annan and the UN Security Council within a month.

'All co-operation'

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said they would be "looking at evidence and trying to reconstitute how this crime was committed and, if possible, who committed it".

The three men have extensive overseas and investigative experience and have also taken part in a number of international investigations, a Garda spokesman said.

Hariri had been prime minister for much of the last 15 years

Their arrival coincides with an announcement by the Lebanese government that Syria will move some of its troops stationed in Lebanon closer to its own border.

Syria has come under increasing international pressure following the bomb attack that killed Mr Hariri - a vocal opponent of Syrian presence in Lebanon - and 16 others.

Lebanese opposition groups have blamed Syria for the killing, a charge Syria has strongly denied.

The US and France led calls for an international investigation following the attack, and the UN Security Council asked Mr Annan to assemble an investigating team.

The Lebanese government initially said it would only be asking Swiss experts to assist its own investigation into the attack.

But on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud said the UN team would receive "all co-operation and assistance from the Lebanese side."