BEIRUT, 22 September 2004 — Syria began redeploying around 3,000 troops from the outskirts of Beirut toward the eastern Syrian-Lebanese border yesterday.
Lebanese sources said once completed, the two-stage redeployment would leave Syria’s troops concentrated in a smaller area of Lebanon and largely restrict them to the strategic eastern Bekaa Valley near the border. A military officer said Syrian soldiers had begun evacuating hilltop positions in the coastal towns of Aramoun, Chuweifat, Damour, Doha and Khaldeh, south of Beirut.
The redeployment followed mounting US-led international pressure on Syria to withdraw its 17,000 troops from Lebanon and stop interfering in its neighbor’s internal affairs.
It was not immediately clear how many Syrian troops would remain in the Bekaa Valley and whether others would return home but security sources said around 3,000 soldiers would be relocating from positions around the capital.
Lebanese and Syrian officials have recently said that any redeployment would be the latest in a series of similar moves that almost halved the number of Syrian forces in Lebanon.
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said the redeployment, the fourth in recent years, was in line with the 1989 Taif Accord which ended the Lebanese 1975-90 civil war. “It aims at consolidating stability and security in Lebanon,” he said after talks with Syria’s Defense Minister Hasan Turkmani and top officers.
Defense Minister Mahmoud Hammoud, emerging from a meeting of senior Lebanese and Syrian military officers in Beirut, said the redeployment indicated “the security situation in Lebanon is becoming more stabilized.”
