Syria abandoned a Bekaa Valley checkpoint held since 1976 and 150 trucks of troops and equipment headed for the border today as Syria kept up the pace of its Lebanon pullout, witnesses said.
The latest withdrawals will leave only a few hundred Syrian troops in Lebanon, security sources said. They will follow on Monday, effectively completing Syria's military withdrawal from its smaller neighbour.
Syria is racing to pull out of its tiny neighbour in line with a United Nations Security Council resolution passed in September. It had promised to be out by April 30 but will beat its deadline by at least four days.
Rustum Ghazaleh, the Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon, and a token Syrian force would be the last to leave after a farewell ceremony in the Bekaa on Tuesday, the sources said.
The military road that links the two countries will be closed behind them and the Lebanese Army will take over the Syrian intelligence headquarters in the town of Anjar.
Around 100 Syrian military vehicles, including tanks and personnel carriers, crossed the border out of Lebanon overnight, witnesses said. Syrian intelligence left a checkpoint in the eastern Bekaa Valley that they have occupied since entering Lebanon in 1976.
The Lebanese army took over the checkpoint, scene of a battle between Syrian and Israeli troops in 1982, the year the Jewish state invaded Beirut.
Witnesses said 150 military trucks carrying troops and equipement were heading toward the border.