Beirut - The Lebanese cabinet decided late Monday to call on the United Nations to investigate a wave of killings of anti-Syrian individuals and to form an international court to investigate the murder of former premier Rafik Hariri. Pro-Syrian Hezbollah and Amal deputies suspended their participation in the Lebanese government to protest a vote calling for an international tribunal and to 'widen the mission of the U.N. investigative team to cover all the assassinations that took place since October 2004'.

'We are suspending our participation in the government in order to consult our leaderships after a vote by the government in favour of an international tribunal,' Hezbollah MP and Energy Minister Mohammed Fneish told reporters. 'It is not a resignation,' Fneish said. The two Shiite groups oppose an international court saying 'it enhances international interference in Lebanon'. The cabinet also decided to ask for an international court to be formed either in Lebanon or elsewhere.

 December 12: Prominent anti-Syrian MP and journalist Gibran Tueni and three others are killed in a car bomb attack as they travel through the Mekallis area of eastern Beirut.

September 25: May Chidiac, a well-known television news journalist for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, is seriously wounded by a car bomb in Jounieh, north of Beirut.

 September 17: A powerful blast rocks the Ashrafiyeh district of Beirut, killing one person and injuring at least 22 more.

August 22: At least two people are injured when an explosion takes place outside a hotel and shopping centre in the Zalka suburb of Beirut.

July 22: Several people are injured in a car bomb blast in a busy Beirut street.

July 12: Former defence minister Elias Murr - a staunch supporter of Syria - and two others are killed in a bomb attack as his motorcade passes through the affluent Beirut suburb of Antelias.

AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice condemned Monday's slaying of a Lebanese journalist who was critical of Syrian involvement in his country as a ``vicious act of terror.'' She conferred with France's foreign minister on how to bring new pressure on Damascus.

It was not immediately clear whether the United States and France, its partner in trying to loosen Syria's grip on its weaker Arab neighbor, were planning moves in the U.N. Security Council, which already has demanded that Syria end its presence in Lebanon. Journalist and lawmaker Gibran Tueni, a relentless critic of Syria who spent months in France fearing assassination, was killed in a car bombing Monday, only a day after returning to his homeland. ``I am outraged by the assassination,'' Rice said, offering her condolences to his family. She called Tueni a Lebanese patriot and a voice of freedom.

BEIRUT, Lebanon