Syria starts redeploying forces in Lebanon

Two Syrian soldiers stand guard yesterday in front of their post in the Lebanese village of Aley in the mountains southeast of Beirut. Syria started redeploying about 3,000 troops in Lebanon, with most of them due to return home, according to a high-ranking Lebanese army official. PHOTO: AFP

Lebanese sources said once completed, the two-stage redeployment would leave Syria's troops concentrated in a smaller area of Lebanon and largely restrict them to the strategic eastern Bekaa Valley near the border.

The redeployment followed mounting US-led international pressure on Syria to withdraw its 17,000 troops from Lebanon and stop interfering in its neighbor's internal affairs.

But it is unlikely to loosen Syria's political grip over Lebanon where its allies remain entrenched in the Lebanese government and state bodies.

It was not immediately clear how many Syrian troops would remain in the Bekaa Valley and whether others would return home but security sources said around 3,000 soldiers would be relocating from positions around the capital.

Lebanese and Syrian officials have recently said that any redeployment would be the latest in a series of similar moves that almost halved the number of Syrian forces in Lebanon.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said the redeployment, the fourth in recent years, was in line with the 1989 Taif Accord which ended the Lebanese 1975-90 civil war and bilateral agreements.

"It aims at consolidating stability and security in Lebanon," he said after talks with Syria's Defence Minister Hasan Turkmani and top officers.

But analysts said the timing was aimed at weathering the international storm and an attempt by Beirut and Damascus to show they were cooperating with the United Nations.

"There is no doubt that the international pressure, the latest tool of which is resolution 1559, has made things take a different course in Lebanon," Jibran Tweini, editor of Lebanon's An Nahar newspaper, told Reuters.

"The withdrawal is an attempt to please the international community and an attempt to pre-empt Annan's report so that it doesn't take things further than the resolution," he said.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is due to report to the Security Council on compliance with the resolution by Oct. 2.

The United States and France drafted Security Council Resolution 1559 earlier this month after Syria asked top officials in Lebanon to extend the mandate of its close ally Lahoud despite local opposition.

The Lebanese parliament brushed aside the resolution, which also called for foreign armies to leave Lebanon, and amended the constitution to allow Lahoud to serve three more years.