Partial Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon
Syria has scaled back its military presence in Lebanon in the fourth major redeployment in three years. Mouhalhel Fakih reports from Lebanon
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In overdue compliance with the 1989 Taif Accord, Syrian troops have been pulling out of bases in Lebanon like this post in Aramoun, a coastal town south of Beirut
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Syrian troops vacated many of their posts in northern Lebanon and the suburbs south of Beirut earlier this week, as military convoys were seen pulling back towards the border. Lebanese security sources described the action as a coordinated redeployment of thousands of soldiers, many of whom will return home. The US, which has been putting pressure on Damascus to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, tersely noted the redeployment and called for the removal of all soldiers.
"We have always supported the goal of a Lebanon free of foreign forces and we have always looked to all the parties to exercise their responsibilities in that regard," State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said. The US sent marines to Lebanon in 1958 and again from 1982 to 1984.
But Nasser Qandil, a pro-Syrian representative in the Lebanese Parliament, denied the redeployment was a result of US coercion. "Syria is redeploying its soldiers in line with the Taif Accord... which it began two years ago, before these pressures," MP Qandil said.
The redeployment process started Monday night. "We received orders from high command to withdraw to Syria and we're carrying out those orders," a Syrian officer told AFP.
The most visible sign of their absence was from a four-storey building in coastal Aramoun, some 10 kilometres south of Beirut, and three other posts in the hilltop area. But soldiers were still seen on Tuesday in some strategic neighbourhoods of Khalde, close to Beirut International Airport and at the junctions of highways leading to the Shouf Mountain and mainly Christian suburbs of the capital. Observers estimate Syria has trimmed its 35,000-strong force here to less than 20,000.
The Syrian troops first entered Lebanon in 1976, one year after the outbreak of civil war, seeking to prevent a victory by leftist, primarily Palestinian organisations over the Maronite Christian militias. The 1989 Taif Accord, which ended the fighting, called for a total Syrian military redeployment from Beirut and other major cities to the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon by 1992, but Lebanon and Syria have insisted a full withdrawal is linked to a final Arab-Israeli peace. The Taif Accord set no date for a total withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
As the Syrians vacated some of their posts on Monday night, Lebanese police reported flights by Israeli drone reconnaissance aircraft over the Bekaa Valley, near the Syrian-Lebanese border. Hours after the troop redeployment began, a Lebanese Foreign Ministry source said top commanders of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) informed Foreign Minister Jean Obeid that Israel plans to stop all violations of Lebanon's airspace in the next two weeks. However, UNIFIL immediately denied conveying such a message, and said it "has received no such assurances". Israeli overflights have notched up tensions along the frontier, with the warplanes frequently breaking the sound barrier and conducting mock bombing runs as Hizbullah fires anti-aircraft weapons. Hizbullah, which spearheaded the resistance drive to oust Israel from southern Lebanon in May 2000, has vowed to do the same in the disputed Shebaa Farms region along the Lebanese-Syrian-Israeli border, still under Israeli occupation.
Israel has been urging Washington to pressure Syria into disarming Hizbullah. Its supporters on Capitol Hill have backed the so-called Syria Accountability Act, now awaiting a Senate and House vote. It calls for President George W Bush to impose sanctions on Syria for its troops presence in Lebanon and support for Hizbullah, among other issues. Though the Bush administration has not supported the bill, Secretary of State Colin Powell recently branded Syria's presence in Lebanon an "occupation".
Significantly, the Israeli daily Maariv reported this week that the US asked Syria to fully withdraw troops from Lebanon soon. It said American sources have reassured Israel that the "pressure will continue". Maariv asserted that Washington made clear to Damascus that it must expel "terrorist" groups -- an apparent reference to representatives of various Palestinian factions whose offices are in Damascus -- as well as clamp down on Hizbullah's presence in southern Lebanon. The daily said Washington opposed any expulsion of Palestinian opposition figures to Lebanon.
Beirut commentators argued that US pressure on Syria to withdraw troops from Lebanon was only one of a series of demands Washington has made following its invasion of Iraq. Nicolas Nassif wrote in the daily An-Nahar that since the 1991 Gulf War, the US halted calls for Syria to end its intervention in Lebanese affairs. Nassif said Secretary of State Powell, on a visit to Damascus in May on the heels of the fall of Baghdad, made a package demand for Syria to pull out from Lebanon, disarm Hizbullah and bolster stability along Israel's border with its northern neighbour.
This week's redeployment was seen as a preemptive move by Syria to prevent any strains on its influence here. As prominent observer Sarkis Naoum wrote in An- Nahar, Syria is well aware that the United States would only launch a military attack against Damascus if the Syrian leadership provides it with justification for such an unlikely strike. Naoum said Washington could use Syria's presence in Lebanon to pressure Damascus, especially if the Syria Accountability Act is brought to a vote in Congress. The veteran commentator predicted that official US calls for a Syrian pullout could garner international and Arab support, as well as backing from a "majority" of the "Lebanese peoples". While the powerful Lebanese-American community is ambivalent towards the Syria Accountability Act, it has been staunchly opposed to a continued Syrian presence in Lebanon.
Calls in Beirut by the mainly Christian Maronite opposition for a withdrawal had eased in the wake of the war against Iraq. Influential Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir cautioned against petitioning Damascus at a time when it faced tough US criticism, but he simultaneously renewed the calls for a "sovereign and free" Lebanon. Syria's ties with Maronites here, increasingly chilly throughout the 1990s, have been warming, but some opposition figures like exiled former Lebanese Army Commander General Michel Aoun openly back US pressure on Damascus.
Some other politicians, including members of the exclusively Christian Qornet Shehwan opposition front, have urged a total shake up of the Lebanese political class, and insist that the country's "sovereignty" could only be "restored" once Syrian troops withdraw and Syrian-Lebanese ties are "rectified."
In June, a number of Beirut newspapers reported for the first time that a full withdrawal would be carried out by the end of next year. But they said Syria's presence here would continue to be felt, citing a bilateral "fraternity and cooperation" treaty signed in 1991, regulating virtually all aspects of Syrian-Lebanese ties.
"A Syrian withdrawal would take away a pressure point from the Americans," but without deep-seated changes on the ground, "since the Syrian influence would not be affected," the French-language L'Orient Le Jour reported at the time.
