Below is a chronology of some of the major political assassinations in Lebanon over the last three decades, of which Monday's killing of former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri is only the latest.
March 1977 - Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt is killed in an ambush in his Shouf mountain fiefdom in central Lebanon.
June 1978 - Tony Franjiya, son of former president Sulaiman Franjiya, is assassinated in raid by Christian militia rivals at his home in Ehden, north Lebanon.
September 1982 - Bashir Jumail, elected president, is killed before taking office by a bomb allegedly planted by a pro-Syrian Christian. His brother Amin becomes president.
June 1987 - Lebanon's veteran prime minister Rashid Karami is killed by a bomb in an army helicopter in Tripoli. Karami was serving his ninth term as prime minister in a 37-year career.
Religious head
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Monday's blast occurred near a
busy seafront area in Beirut |
May 1989 - Grand Mufti Shaikh Hasan Khalid, religious head of Lebanon's Sunni community, is killed by a car bomb in Beirut. The blast killed 22 people and wounded 80.
November 1989 - President Rene Muawad is killed in a huge bomb explosion in Beirut. Muawad, a Syrian-backed Maronite Christian, had only recently been elected.
October 1990 - Armed men kill Dani Shamun, chairman of the National Liberal Party and former Christian militia leader, in a Christian suburb of Beirut.
February 1992 - Israelis kill Abbas Mussawi, leader of Hizb Allah, in helicopter ambush of his convoy near village of Jibshyt in south Lebanon.
January 2002 - Elie Hubaika, former minister and leader of pro-Israeli Christian militia involved in 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, is killed in Beirut.
May 2002 - Muhammad Jihad Ahmad Jibril, son of Ahmad Jibril, leader of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General-Command (PFLP-GC), is killed in car bomb in Beirut.
Feb 2005 - Huge car bomb kills Lebanon's former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri on Beirut's waterfront.