Syrian retreat ends 29-year occupation of Lebanon

SYRIAN troops burned documents and dismantled military posts in their final hours in Lebanon yesterday, before deploying towards the border and effectively ending 29 years of military presence in the country.

A few score Syrian troops will remain in Lebanon for a farewell ceremony tomorrow.

In Damascus, the Syrian capital, a government official said: “Within the next few hours, all the troops will be out of Lebanon. What will be left are those who will take part in the official farewell tomorrow.”

In the border town of Anjar, home of Syria’s chief of military intelligence in Lebanon, Syrian officials appeared to be going about their business as usual yesterday.

But at the Deir el-Ahmar base, Syria’s last major garrison in the Bekaa Valley, 15 tanks rolled on to flatbed trucks, ready for the drive home, witnesses said. Soldiers burned papers, knocked down walls and loaded ammunition on to trucks. Syrian troops had already vacated at least 10 positions in the northern part of the Bekaa Valley on Saturday.

Dozens of trucks carrying hundreds of soldiers and at least 150 armoured vehicles, towing artillery pieces and rocket launchers, crossed the border into Syria, witnesses said.

Tomorrow, Lebanese troops at a base in Rayak, a few miles from the Syrian border, will conduct a ceremony to pay tribute to the Syrian army’s role in Lebanon, a Lebanese military officer said.

Afterwards, the token Syrian force will leave, and there will not be a single Syrian soldier left in Lebanon. The Syrians entered Lebanon in 1976, ostensibly as peacekeepers in the year-old civil war. After the war ended in 1990, 40,000 Syrian troops stayed, giving Damascus a major say in Lebanese politics. Syria began withdrawing from Lebanon following international pressure in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.