UNITED NATIONS – The Security Council yesterday established an investigative team that would examine the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri, which will create an unprecedented international presence in Beirut.

The resolution calls for full cooperation by Syrian-controlled Lebanese authorities. They must allow the U.N. team access to documents and testimony. And the commission would have the authority to independently collect any evidence it sees fit. It also calls on all member states to cooperate, including Syria.

Secretary-General Annan is expected to form the commission, but he has yet to seek a candidate to head it. A French diplomat told The New York Sun that the plan is to establish a team of at least 100 people, which, in addition to professional forensic investigators, will include interpreters and a large security detail for the commission members.

“Lebanon confirms its commitment to cooperate with the international investigation commission,” said an official of the Syrian-controlled Lebanese foreign ministry, Boutros Asker, reading in Arabic from a prepared statement and refusing to take questions. “The issue is fully Lebanese and I have nothing to say,” Syria’s ambassador, Fayssal Mekdad, added.

A recent U.N.-mandated inquiry of a team headed by the Irish deputy police commissioner, Peter FitzGerald, accused Syria of creating the political climate that led to Hariri’s assassination on February 14. When Mr. Mekdad was asked if he was sure that the new investigation would clear Damascus’s involvement with the assassination, he said, “Syria will never be involved with such dirty work.” Instead, he pointed to “those who benefited from this crime.”

Yesterday’s resolution was sponsored by France, America, and Britain and passed unanimously. “It gives the commission the authority to collect testimonial, documentary, physical information, and evidence, to have freedom of movement throughout Lebanon, to have privileges and immunities to which its members are entitled,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

The FitzGerald team concluded that no thorough investigation could be carried out as long as the Syrian-backed Lebanese security apparatus controls the country, but the council did not address that concern. “This commission is totally independent,” said French ambassador Jean Marc de la Sabliere, adding, however, that for the investigation to succeed, “the cooperation of the Lebanese government is essential.”