Syria Will Reconfigure Its Forces in Lebanon

Under fierce pressure to loosen its hold on its neighbor, Syria will pull more soldiers from Lebanon’s coastal and mountain regions and station them closer to the Syrian border, Lebanese and Syrian officials said Thursday.

The planned redeployment fails to meet demands from the United States and a growing Lebanese opposition movement for a withdrawal of all 16,000 Syrian soldiers from Lebanon. Still, the announcement marked Syria’s biggest response to an unprecedented wave of pressure to leave Lebanon.

Syria gave no timeline for its redeployment and made no reference to the thousands of intelligence agents who were ordered out of Lebanon along with the soldiers in a U.N. Security Council resolution passed last year. The United Nations mandate would be carried out “in the best formula possible,” according to a Foreign Ministry statement read by Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed Mualem.

“Speeding up the pace of withdrawals requires enabling the Lebanese army and internal security forces to fill the vacuum ... in a way that does not undermine the security of Lebanon and Syria,” the statement said.

Syrian officials made it plain that the pullout would be limited. They said the soldiers would redeploy according to the 16-year-old Taif Accord, which spells out a retreat to the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border, followed by negotiations with Lebanon to arrange a total military withdrawal.

“Syria expresses its keen interest in cooperating with the envoy of the secretary-general of the United Nations to accomplish his mission in the best formula possible,” the ministry statement said.

“The important withdrawals that have been carried out so far and will be carried out later will be done in agreement with Lebanon against the backdrop of the Taif Accord and the mechanism it entails.”

A few hours later, Lebanon’s defense minister, Abdul Rahim Murad, said the soldiers were about to start their move toward the Bekaa Valley in the east. “They took the decision to start the redeployment in the next few hours,” Murad told Al Jazeera satellite TV.

But news reports from Lebanon indicated no sign of movement Thursday night, and some officials predicted that the redeployment would be carried out more slowly.

Syria’s role in Lebanon has come under fire since former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed in a massive car bombing in Beirut last week. Although no evidence has emerged as to who killed the billionaire real estate magnate, the Lebanese widely blame Syria.

Tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Beirut to demand Syria’s withdrawal after the killing, and the United States recalled its ambassador to Damascus to protest the country’s presence in Lebanon.

Lebanese officials have rejected calls for an international inquiry into Hariri’s death, but investigators sent by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Beirut on Thursday. The three were to examine the blast site and consult with local investigators.

Syria has had soldiers in Lebanon since the 1970s, and it won international approval with the Taif Accords in 1989 to remain in the civil-war-wracked country for some time. Lebanon emerged from its 15-year war in 1990, and the Syrians were meant to keep the peace while the fledgling government found its footing.

Syrian officials have warned that their forces are the only ones strong enough to keep Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon in check, as well as control the Palestinian refugee camps.

Syria’s allies in Lebanon warned the international community Thursday against pushing Syria out too quickly.

“In our opinion, it would shake the stability of the country,” Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami told Reuters.

“Driving Syria out of Lebanon through challenges, provocation and curses cannot leave the country relaxed and stable,” he said. A Syrian withdrawal “can only take place through consensus.”

The United States argues that Syria has violated the spirit of Taif by keeping its soldiers in Lebanon and exerting control over the country’s political and economic life.

Last fall’s U.N. mandate calls not for a redeployment, but for an evacuation of Syrian soldiers. Some analysts predict that Syria will try to avoid that.

Damascus is particularly leery of leaving the Bekaa, a strategic land link between Damascus and Israel, which are officially still at war.

In response to complaints over the last five years, Syria has repeatedly rearranged its soldiers in Lebanon, gradually thinning their ranks even as it pressed a deeper influence in the country’s political and economic institutions.

The most recent redeployment came shortly after the Security Council resolution was passed at the urging of the United States and France.

Thursday’s announcement was greeted with scorn by Lebanese opposition leaders, who dismissed the redeployment as a way for Damascus to buy time. They predicted a cosmetic rearrangement of troops that would mask Syria’s continuing domination of Lebanese affairs.

“There is a missing word in the Syrian Foreign Ministry statement,” opposition member Samir Franjieh told Lebanese Al Hayat-LBC satellite television.

“That word is the ‘complete’ withdrawal from Lebanon,” Franjieh said.