About 2,000 Syrian troops have pulled out of eastern Lebanon over the past week ahead of an announcement on the withdrawal of all Syrian forces from Lebanon, a senior Lebanese security source said on Monday. The source said small units in the eastern Bekaa Valley were going home, leaving behind the 10th division of the Syrian army entrenched in the area as well as scores of intelligence agents. A Syrian-Lebanese military committee is due to meet next week to set a timeline for withdrawing the remaining forces.

Facing immense international pressure and popular Lebanese protest, Syria has promised to withdraw all military personnel, intelligence agents and equipment it poured into Lebanon early in the country's 1975-1990 civil war.

Damascus has completed the first stage of a two-phase withdrawal plan, pulling back to Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley and withdrawing more than a third of the 14,000 troops it kept in its tiny neighbour. It pulled troops out of about a dozen positions in the Bekaa last week. On Sunday, it left its two largest and last anti-aircraft positions, the sources said. The latest withdrawals mean there are 8,000 Syrian troops left in Lebanon.

Witnesses said soldiers in Mashghara and nearby areas on the south-western edge of the Bekaa were packing up and dismantling equipment on Monday. Trucks were being brought in to load the equipment, they said.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said he expects Syria to complete the pull out before Lebanese general elections due in May.

Copyright Reuters, 2005