by Nathaniel Harrison
BEIRUT - Syrian forces ended a nearly 30-year presence in north Lebanon on Friday but the pro-Syrian government in Beirut remained under pressure to secure their withdrawal from every inch of Lebanese territory.
Despite the military moves, a United Nations special envoy was due in Damascus on Saturday, when according to the Washington Post he would warn President Bashar al-Assad he faced international isolation unless he withdrew his forces completely and quickly from Lebanon.
Friday`s pullback, part of an operation affecting 6,000 troops that began Tuesday, was also unlikely to satisfy Lebanon`s emboldened anti-Syrian opposition, which is demanding a total evacuation.
Opposition parties have in addition spurned a plea to join a national unity government issued Thursday by newly re-appointed, Syrian-backed Prime Minister Omar Karameh.
A Christian opposition movement, Qornet Shahwan, charged in a statement Friday that the re-appoinment "is an escalation that means a continuation of Syrian guardianship".
Karameh was tapped to be premier by Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, a Syrian ally, following consultations with MPs. Karameh`s return to power came just 1O days after his dramatic resignation in the face of anti-Syrian popular protest.
He has said he plans to begin his search for a national unity cabinet on Monday but acknowledged in an interview with the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat he was not optimistic about his chances. "I see a long wait," he said.
But the latest anti-Syrian agitation appeared to bear some fruit Friday when a Lebanese military source said Syrian forces had completely withdrawn from northern Lebanon and were heading toward the Syrian border.
Nearly 3,000 Syrian soldiers had been stationed in the region since 1976, according to unofficial estimates by Lebanese security services.
At the same time Syrian units that occupied positions in the mountains overlooking this sparkling Mediterranean city were also striking camp and moving toward the Bekaa Valley of eastern Lebanon.
Local people gave a jubilant welcome to Lebanese troops as they took up formerly held Syrian positions in the mountains east of Beirut, an AFP correspondent reported.
The United States, France and other powers have turned up the heat on Syria to end its military and political domination of Lebanon, consistent with last September`s UN Security Council Resolution 1559.
Their calls intensified following the February 14 assassination in a Beirut bomb blast of popular former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
The highest Sunni Muslim religious authority in Lebanon, Mufti Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, called Friday for an international investigation into the killing.
Syria has strongly denied involvement in Hariri`s death but there is widespread suspicion in Lebanon that Damascus was responsible, a sentiment that galvanized the anti-Syrian movement and sparked spirited street protests.
But pro-Syrian Lebanese groups, notably among the Shia Muslim community, responded earlier this week with a huge demonstration of their own to express gratitude to Syria, seen in some quarters as a guarantor of social stability following Lebanon`s 1975-1990 civil war.
Lebanese Shiites, for decades excluded from maintstream power, are likewise grateful to Syria for having used its influence to raise their political stature.
But displays of support for Syria have left much of the international community unmoved.
The Washington Post, citing UN and US officials, reported that UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen would give the Syrian president an ultimatum when they meet Saturday in Damascus.
But Roed-Larsen, "by the nature of his mandate and that of the secretary general, cannot carry threats", Beirut-based UN spokesman Nejib Friji said.
Syrian forces in Lebanon, which currently number 14,000, entered the country in 1976 to serve as a buffer between warring factions early in the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.
Syria at one time had 40,000 troops in Lebanon.
Damascus is also facing demands that it shut down its military intelligence apparatus in the country. But according to a Lebanese military source Syrian personnel were Friday still occupying six offices in northern Lebanon.
03/11/2005 16:30 GMT