|
Syrian Withdrawal From Beirut Marks Time
BEIRUT, June 18 (News Agencies) - Syrian troops held on to at least 15 positions in Lebanon's capital Monday as a withdrawal that had been carried out over the previous four days seemed to stall.
Neither the Lebanese nor Syrian governments have commented on the scope of the redeployment, announced in a Lebanese army statement on June 14.
The Lebanese army had said then that the withdrawal would last for several days, "until the end of the week," and the Future TV channel, owned by Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, has said that Syrian troop movements should be completed within the coming 24 hours.
In central Beirut, Syrian soldiers maintained a seafront post, after having evacuated nine positions Sunday, including one opposite the main entrance, known as the 'medical gate' leading to the faculty of medicine, of the American University of Beirut (AUB).
Syrian forces held on to at least eight billets and positions in the east Beirut quarter of Baabda.
In Yarzeh, an eastern Beirut suburb, a sentry was still guarding an empty barrack near Lebanon's defense ministry, while Syrian troops occupied another position adjoining the ministry.
Soldiers continued to hold onto four positions overlooking the area, and did not appear to be preparing an evacuation.
Syrian troops were also still deployed in the predominantly Shiite Muslim southern suburbs of Beirut, mainly near the Kuwaiti embassy and on the airport road.
The situation was the same in the northeastern Christian mountain district of Metn, where the Syrians had evacuated four bases, but on Monday were still in control of five other positions, dotting a road from Mkalles to Dhour Choueir.
A guard remained stationed in front of barracks in Mkalles, even though most soldiers had left the area Friday.
Syrian troops were also found in the forests of Monteverde and Ain Saadeh, and at the Roman ruins in Deir al-Qalaa.
Syrian troops had on Sunday evacuated four bases in Ain Saadeh and Fanar, the location of Christian schools and some branches of the Lebanese University.
At the blockhouse leading to four Syrian barracks, the Lebanese army put a sign forbidding trespassing.
The Syrians destroyed several stone huts before withdrawing.
There was little traffic on the road from Beirut to Damascus, where previous days had seen a steady flow of Syrian military vehicles, testimony to the pause in redeployment.
Residents in Dhour Choueir also noted fewer military trucks and buses coming and going throughout the night, contrary to the redeployment's first days.
The scaling back of Syrian troops followed stepped-up calls this year, mostly by Christian Lebanese, for Syria's estimated 27,000 troops to be redeployed following the end of Israel's 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in May 2000.
Under the 1989 Taef accords, which ended Lebanon's 15-year civil war, the Syrian army should have pulled out as early as 1992 from the areas which have been evacuated since Thursday. It first moved into Lebanon in 1976, a year after the start of the country's civil war.
|
