Lebanese opposition seeks ouster of Hezbollah-led government in wake of killing BEIRUT - Lebanon's main anti-Syrian coalition called Saturday for the ouster of the country's Hezbollah-led government, a day after the assassination of a senior intelligence official heightened political and sectarian tensions across the country. Leaders of the March 14 alliance have accused the Syrian government of responsibility for the bombing in Beirut that killed Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, the head of the Internal Security Forces" information department, on a quiet street in Christian East Beirut outside one of several safe houses he maintained. Hassan had been credited with exposing Syrian-led plots to plant bombs in Lebanon and was a close friend and ally of Sunni political leader Saad al-Hariri, a central figure in Lebanon's anti-Syrian camp. The country was on edge as Sunnis took to the streets in several areas to burn tires and block roads in protest of the killing, which has stirred dark memories of a wave of similar assassinations of anti-Syrian figures from 2005 to 2008. A bigger test of the momentum building behind the opposition's efforts to oust the government will come at Hassan's funeral, to be held here Sunday at the downtown location housing the tomb of Hariri's father, former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The elder Hariri's 2005 death, also in a bombing blamed on Syria, forced Syrian troops to leave Lebanon, then plunged the country into three years of turmoil. The March 14 coalition, named after the date of a huge rally after Hariri's death, called on citizens to make Sunday a "day of rage" against "the butcher Bashar al-Assad and the black regime that rules Syria." Although Syria was blamed for this latest bombing, the opposition is focusing its attention on Syria's chief Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, whose political and military dominance over the country is deeply resented by many Sunnis and Christians. The March 14 statement also called for the resignation of Prime Minister Najib Mikati and his government, which it said "does nothing but implement the policies of the killer Syrian regime." Mikati told reporters he was ready to resign but said he had been asked by the president, Michel Suleiman, to stay on pending a resolution of the crisis. "The government is not the issue," he said. The government is going to resign sooner or later. Not now, but sooner rather than later. But we don't want to go into the unknown. The crisis has heightened long-standing concerns that the conflict in neighboring Syria is spreading to Lebanon, whose factions have been polarized by the revolt against Assad's rule. But the assassination has also revived festering grudges left unresolved by the upheaval of the past decade. The strife ended after Hezbollah fighters swept through the streets of the mostly Sunni West Beirut area of the capital in 2008, routing a fledgling Sunni militia formed by Saad Hariri and asserting the movement's role as the country's most powerful military and political entity. Sunnis have not forgiven Hezbollah for using against Lebanese citizens the weapons it is permitted to possess under the terms of the 1990 peace accord that ended Lebanon's 15-year civil war. Nor have they forgotten its conquest of areas traditionally deemed Sunni areas of influence.