Syria gives in to US as intelligence officers withdrawn

SYRIAN military intelligence started clearing out its headquarters in Beirut and vacated another office in the Lebanese capital yesterday in line with key demands by the US and Lebanese opposition.

The evacuation of the Syrian intelligence service, a widely-resented arm through which Damascus controlled many aspects of Lebanese life, has been a key demand of the opposition, which orchestrated a gigantic demonstration on Monday in central Beirut.

Syrian agents appeared to be preparing to leave their headquarters at Ramlet el-Baida on the edge of Beirut. Belongings and furniture were loaded into three trucks.

In the city’s commercial Hamra district, about two dozen Syrian agents vacated an intelligence office in the afternoon.

The agents, protected by Lebanese police, then drove off in the trucks. A short time later, a doorman hoisted two Lebanese flags at the entrance.

The Syrians have occupied the Hamra building’s second, third and fourth floors since Syrian forces returned to Beirut in 1987 to stop Muslim militia fighting. It was targeted by a carbomb in 1988 in the 1975-1990 civil war.

Despite Syria’s troop withdrawal last week from northern and central Lebanon to eastern positions closer to their country’s border, most intelligence offices remain.

Of all Syrian forces in Lebanon, the intelligence agents are those who deal most directly with Lebanese, setting up checkpoints and making arrests. People must go to them to get permits and licenses or even to resolve family disputes.

The intelligence offices were the only remnants of Syria’s military presence left in Beirut following the 2000 withdrawal of army positions from the capital.

Earlier, about 2,000 pro-Syria demonstrators marched towards the US embassy in a Beirut suburb, denouncing what they said was US interference in Lebanon.

Scores of riot police and soldiers used barbed wire to block the approaches.

The protesters, waving Lebanese flags and chanting, “ambassador get out, leave my country free”, stopped at the barbed wire blocking the road about 500 yards from the fortified hilltop compound.

Pro-Syrian groups have blamed the US for pressuring Syria into deciding to withdraw its 14,000 troops from Lebanon. They also reject a US-sponsored UN Security Council resolution demanding that Syria withdraw and dismantle militias, a reference to the militant Shi’ite Muslim group Hezbollah.