Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. withdrew its ambassador from Syria to protest the car bomb attack yesterday in Beirut that killed Rafik Hariri, a former prime minister of Lebanon, the U.S. State Department said.

The ambassador, Margaret Scobey, is being recalled to Washington for ``urgent consultations'' following the ``murder'' of Hariri, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Boucher said the U.S. was acting to demonstrate ``deep concern and outrage'' over the killing of Hariri and linked the withdrawal to Syria's continued deployment of about 15,000 troops in Lebanon after promising to remove them.

``We want to see Syria withdraw its forces,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan said at a press briefing in Washington. ``Syria's troop presence in Lebanon is a destabilizing force.''

A previously unknown group calling itself Victory and Jihad in Bilad As-Sham said it was behind the killing of Hariri in a videotape aired yesterday by al-Jazeera television. Bilad As-Sham could be translated as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine.

15 Dead

The bomb's devastation was the biggest since the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990, in which almost 100,000 people lost their lives. The number of people killed in the assault rose to 15, including Hariri and seven of his bodyguards, Agence France- Presse reported today, citing an unnamed local official involved in a probe of the incident.

Hariri, a billionaire businessman-turned-politician who was 61, had led five governments since 1992. He resigned as prime minister in October because of differences with Lebanon's Syrian- backed president, Emile Lahoud. The U.S. and United Nations condemned the attack.

``Syria needs to change its behavior and use its influence in a constructive way to do what it can to prevent attacks like this from happening in the first place,'' McClellan said.

The U.S. isn't accusing Syria of involvement in the killing, though it believes the attack raises new questions about Syria's continued military presence in Lebanon and undermines Syrian justifications for the deployment, Boucher said.

The U.S. has ``not reached a determination on who is behind the assassination,'' Boucher said. ``We think it needs to be looked into thoroughly.'' The U.S. has not reviewed a French recommendation for an international investigation, he said.

Syrian troops entered Lebanon as a peacekeeping force in 1976 to end a civil war that broke out in 1975 between Christians and Muslims. The war ended in 1990.

Syria has justified its failure to withdraw by citing the Lebanese government's continued requests for help and its failure to implement constitutional reforms set out in the 1989 agreement.

The killing ``shows the distortion of Lebanese politics that are caused by Syria's presence,'' Boucher said at the State Department today. Syria's military ``does not provide internal security for Lebanon,'' Boucher said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Basken in Washington at pbasken@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 15, 2005 13:29 EST