Rafiq Hariri's murder seven years ago. On the day of the assassination, Soueid was with Hariri in the Lebanese parliament, drinking coffee in the bar outside the debating chamber. Hariri left, and five minutes later Soueid heard the blast. He knew it was a bomb - this is Beirut, after all - but it never crossed his mind that it might be his friend. "For us, Hariri was a superman," he told me. "We thought the guarantees from the United States and the Arab world would keep him safe. He was a 'Muslim with a tie': he wanted to show the world that Islam is not terrorism, and that it can work with the international community." Who killed him? "The Syrians and Iranians, through Hezbollah. The message wassimple: 'There is no immunity for any Muslim in the Islamic world who has relations with the west.'"

For Soueid, Hariri's death changed everything. "Before the assassination, the demand [for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon] came from the Christians only," he told me. "After the assassination, the alliance was Maronite, Druze and Sunni. Only the Shias opposed it."

Unstoppable force

Sami Gemayel, scion of one of Lebanon's most prominent Maronite families, is another important member of March 14. Both his father, Amine, and his uncle Bachir, who was assassinated in 1982, served as president of Lebanon, a post that he, too, is tipped to hold one day. With Garo, my Armenian driver, I drove through the city's Christian quarter to see him.

On the pavements either side of us walked immaculately dressed women