Syrian troops withdrawing

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Syria has withdrawn nearly a third of its 14,000 troops from Lebanon, a senior Lebanese army officer said Sunday, while a Syrian Cabinet minister said all the troops would be gone before Lebanese parliamentary elections slated to begin next month.

Since last Tuesday, some 4,000 Syrian soldiers have crossed into Syria, the Lebanese official said. The 10,000 troops still in the country have mainly pulled back to the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon near the Syrian border. About 1,000 intelligence officers remain in the country, mainly in the north around Tripoli and Akkar and on the southern edge of Beirut.

A day after meeting Syrian President Bashar Assad, U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen held sessions Sunday with top Lebanese officials. He was sent to the region to pressure Damascus to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, which demands an end to Syrian involvement in its tiny neighbor after nearly three decades. The document was drafted by the United States and France and adopted in September.

In southern Lebanon, at least 100,000 pro-Syrian demonstrators turned out in the market town of Nabatiyeh. It was the second big protest organized by the militant Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah in a week.

The demonstrators – some estimates put their number as high as 300,000 – shouted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” and slogans denouncing the U.N. resolution, under which Syria is removing its forces.

In south Beirut, thousands of anti-Syrian protesters conducted a candlelight demonstration.