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

The ambassador, Margaret Scobey, is being recalled to Washington for ``urgent consultations'' following the ``murder'' of Hariri, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. He declined to say how long the recall may last.

Scobey told Syria of ``our deep concern, as well as our profound outrage, over this heinous act of terrorism,'' Boucher said. He linked her recall 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 told reporters. ``Syria's troop presence in Lebanon is a destabilizing force.''

Lebanon's interior ministry released a statement saying Ahmad Abu Abas, a Palestinian born in 1982, killed himself in the bombing or caused the attack. The statement said Lebanese security forces went yesterday to his house in Beirut and were told Abas left in the morning and didn't return. Seized videos, documents and equipment showed Abas was a follower of the radical Wahabi fundamentalist sect of Islam.

Lebanese Civil War

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

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 bombing 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.

Syrian Involvement

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

``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.

Syria doesn't obviously benefit from the assassination, because Hariri already had left the government and made his opposition to Syrian policies public, said Richard Murphy, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria.

``It's a stretch to see any advantage'' to Syria beyond providing some additional intimidation to Lebanese who might challenge Syria's role, Murphy said in a telephone interview from New York.

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. hasn't reviewed a French recommendation for an international investigation, he said.

International Inquiry

Saudi Arabia resisted the French suggestion, saying Lebanese courts were capable of doing the job, AFP reported.

``The Lebanese people will be the one to protect the integrity of the investigation into this crime,'' Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said after meeting his French counterpart, Michel Barnier, in Riyadh, AFP said.

In Washington, U.S. lawmakers from both parties expressed support for President George W. Bush's move to recall his envoy.

Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, called the move ``appropriate'' and said he saw ``some degree of Syrian responsibility'' for Hariri's assassination. ``Now I'm not saying the Syrians are behind it but I am saying that circumstantially it's a very bad scene,'' McCain said.

``That was not an unsophisticated operation that they carried out,'' he said. ``We need further investigation to determine whether the Syrians are responsible.''

Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, ``This is a case where we should draw as much attention internationally and put as much pressure on Syria as is humanly possible including seeking a special investigation by the United Nations.''

Recalling Ambassador

Recalling an ambassador, while demonstrating a strong message of protest, also raises problems with deciding when the ambassador should be returned and how to maintain contact in the interim, Murphy said.

The U.S. faced similar problems in 1986, he said, when it recalled its ambassador after blaming Syria for a failed attempt to place a bomb on an El Al airliner in London and went without representation for a year.

``It's hard to get agreement around the U.S. government, at least, on the right time to send somebody back,'' Murphy said.

Bush last May banned all exports to Syria except for food and medicine, saying it continues to support terrorism and is hindering the U.S. effort in Iraq. U.S. officials have repeatedly said in recent months that additional sanctions are possible. U.S. oil companies are still permitted to operate in the country.

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,'' he said.

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

Last Updated: February 15, 2005 16:59 EST