MIDDLE EAST: The assassination on Tuesday of Lebanon's former and future prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, stunned and shocked the country's citizens and former Beirutis like myself, writes Michael Jansen in Beirut
This dramatic and dastardly act revived the trauma of the 15-year civil war and Israel's 1982 invasion.
Beirutis were going about their business, the streets were filled with cars and hooting taxis, women hurried along carrying bags of shopping, children dawdled on their way home from school, vendors sold crispy crescents of bread laced with dried thyme along the corniche, and a choppy sea lapped the coast.
Beirut was at peace with itself, the open wounds of warfare had healed. The city was whole again and struggling to revive its economy. Tourists had returned by the hundreds of thousands. Wealthy Arabs were buying up apartments in the capital and building houses in the hills.
Snow was deep at the mountain resort of Faraya and it was warm enough to paddle in the sea. The Lebanese could, once again, boast that you could ski in the morning and go for a swim the same afternoon.
The sound of a massive explosion washed over the city and blast waves broke window panes on Hamra Street, a brisk 20-minute walk from the site of the bombing. Mobile and land-line phones went dead as frantic, frightened people began to dial relatives to see if they were safe. I tried ringing friends but there was no connection until evening. After more than 20 years in exile, I remain a Beiruti at heart and retain my Beiruti connections.
The target area was transformed from tranquil seafront neighbourhood into a war zone. The bomb slaughtered at least 14 people and wounded scores, scattering severed and burnt body parts, soaking pavements with blood, and reducing to smouldering metal skeletons the cars which had been driving along the street or parked on the sidewalk.
From one terrible moment to the next, there were gutted and charred buildings pitted with shrapnel in the district where in 1976 nationalist and Phalangist militiamen had fought for weeks from sandbagged positions in the Holiday Inn and Phoenicia hotels.
The terrible physical consequences of Tuesday's event constituted a brutal flashback to the dark days of the civil war, even for someone like me who left Lebanon 18 months into the civil conflict and settled in quiet Cyprus.
The bomber's choice of target doubled the trauma. Rafiq Hariri personified the Phoenix-like rise of Beirut from the ruins and ashes of conflict. During his first terms as prime minister, he focused on rebuilding the commercial heart of divided Beirut in order to reunite its mainly Christian eastern sector with its largely Muslim western sector.
Once the ruins, rubble and explosive ordnance were cleared away, Mr Hariri organised a concert at the centre of the district, the "Bourj", where a statue commemorated Lebanese freedom fighters hanged by the Ottomans.
The feature singer was Feyrouz, an ever-young diva who symbolised Lebanon's golden days. Her high, mewing voice brought tears to the eyes of the thousands who attended the festival and the hundreds of thou- sands, including me, who watched on television.
One by one buildings rose above the bulldozed sand flats, a pink villa here, a tall, tan bloc there. Whenever I visited, I would walk from Hamra into town to see what would next emerge. Bank Street and the Ottoman Serai were refurbished, handsome French colonial commercial buildings rebuilt, streets repaved, the port rebuilt. A new Beirut began to take shape. It was not our slightly down-at-heel pre-war Beirut. That Beirut had been destroyed. Mr Hariri's project was a pristine, fresh-minted Beirut.
But most Beirutis do not look back to long for lost yesterdays. They love Mr Hariri's Beirut and flock into the centre of town to window-shop, pause for coffee or ice cream at a sidewalk café, and admire his handiwork.
Lebanese, who had lost faith in themselves during the war, regained self-confidence and the will to live together again, thanks to Rafik Hariri. They forgave his authoritarian style of governance, lavish spending on civic luxuries Lebanon could ill afford, corruption and kickbacks, their country's rising indebtedness and falling growth rate.
Brash Mr Hariri became "Mr Lebanon" - saviour, saint and sinner all rolled into one rough-hewn, bulky figure. Now that he is gone, the Lebanese ask, "What will become of us?"