Men wept uncontrollably as the procession wound through Beirut streets plastered with posters of the Sunni Muslim billionaire slain in a suspected suicide car bombing on Monday.

"Syria out, Syria out," the mourners shouted as people threw rice from balconies onto an ambulance carrying the body of a man who had joined opposition calls for Syria to end a military presence maintained since a 1976 civil war intervention.

In tears, his sons and relatives bore his coffin, draped in a Lebanese flag, from the ambulance into an unfinished mosque Hariri had financed in Beirut's once war-shattered downtown.

Some mourners fainted amid chaotic scenes as the crowd surged around the coffin before Hariri was laid to rest in the grounds of the mosque a few hundred meters from the seafront.

His killing revived memories of the 1975-90 civil war and spotlighted Lebanon's troubled ties with its powerful neighbor Syria. It has also brought renewed international pressure led by the United States and France for Syria to quit Lebanon.

The family had spurned government offers of a state funeral and made clear officials such as Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud, Prime Minister Omar Karami and Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh were not welcome to attend.

Syria, which has condemned Hariri's assassination and denied responsibility, made no public comment on Wednesday.

A security source said at least 150,000 people had joined the funeral march, but other witnesses estimated hundreds of thousands of mourners had taken to the streets in one of Lebanon's biggest and most diverse gatherings for decades.

French President Jacques Chirac, a personal friend of Hariri, was flying to Beirut to present condolences and "pay tribute to the person who always personified Lebanon's will for independence, freedom and democracy," his office said.

President Bush (news - web sites)'s administration recalled its ambassador to Damascus on Tuesday for consultations to show its anger at Syria's military and political domination of Lebanon.

Several European and Arab ministers, along with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, were among foreign dignitaries in Beirut for the burial.

Mosques blared prayers and church bells tolled across Beirut. The march, initially silent apart from the ambulance's siren, erupted in shouts of "Allahu Akbar (God is greatest)" and chants against Syria and its allies in Lebanon.

"Revenge, revenge on Lahoud and Bashar," some mourners yelled, referring to the Syrian-backed Lebanese president and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.

"They feared you, they killed you," read a banner near Hariri's house. "We are all shouting for Syria to get out. I want to kill someone today -- a Syrian," one mourner said.

Hariri's emotional supporters declared allegiance to his businessman son Bahaa, urging him to take his political mantle.

ANGER IN WASHINGTON



U.S. officials said they were considering new sanctions on Syria because of its refusal to withdraw its 14,000 troops from Lebanon and Washington's belief that Damascus lets Palestinian militants and Iraqi insurgents operate on its soil.

"The Syrian government is unfortunately on a path right now where relations are not improving, but are worsening," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) said in Washington. "We will continue to consider what other options are at our disposal."

The White House said it was too early to tell who killed Hariri. The Bush administration wants U.N. Security Council members to consider possible measures against the perpetrators, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations (news - web sites) said.

Lebanese opposition figures did not hesitate to point an accusing finger at Damascus. "I charge the Lebanese-Syrian police regime with the responsibility for Hariri's death," Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said on Tuesday.

"Hey, Syria, who's next?" a placard held by a mourner read.

Druze, Christian and Shi'ite clerics joined the procession, where the red flags of Jumblatt's party and the green cedar flags of its civil war Phalangist foes fluttered in the crowd.

Hariri, 60, the driving force behind an ambitious postwar reconstruction program that left Lebanon heavily in debt, died in a bomb explosion that killed 14 others and wounded 135.

He resigned as prime minister in October after falling out with Syria over its role in extending the presidential term of Lahoud, his political rival.

He then joined opposition leaders in calling for Syria to withdraw its troops and stop interfering in Lebanese affairs, as demanded by the U.N. Security Council.

"Hariri is a nationally loved leader. He rebuilt Beirut and Beirut loved him," said Yahya Bahlawan, a weeping mourner carrying a picture of Hariri. "He was a peaceful man."