Anti-Syria Protesters Fill Streets of Beirut

Tens of thousands of Lebanese marched Monday in a large anti-Syrian protest amid signals that Damascus might soon withdraw some troops from the country.

The protest marked one week since former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated, a killing that many citizens blamed on Syria, which exercises de facto control over its smaller neighbor. Hariri’s killing has increased international pressure on Damascus to extract its 16,000 troops from Lebanon.

Holding red roses and Lebanese flags, the throngs on the streets of Beirut shouted insults at Syria and demanded the resignation of the pro-Syrian government.

Meanwhile, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said Syrian President Bashar Assad had told him that Damascus would soon take steps toward withdrawing its forces in line with the Taif Accord, which ended Lebanon’s 1975 to 1990 civil war.

Assad “stressed more than once in [our] talks his firm intention to press ahead with the implementation of the Taif agreement and to plan a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in line with this agreement,” Moussa told reporters after meeting Assad in Damascus, the Syrian capital. “The issue of Taif and the withdrawal is ... part of Syrian policy. There will be talk and steps that we will see soon.”

Syria, which sent its army into Lebanon in 1976 amid the civil war, has always pledged to implement the Taif accord, and has redeployed troops several times since 2000. However, a withdrawal to the eastern Bekaa Valley scheduled for the early 1990s, followed by an eventual total pullout, was never carried out.