Syria has completed the first phase of its troop pullout from Lebanon, bringing Damascus closer to meeting US and Lebanese opposition demands that it quit the neighbour it has dominated for three decades.
A Lebanese security source said 4,000 to 6,000 Syrian troops had returned home since the pullout plan was announced on March 5th, leaving 8,000 to 10,000 in eastern Lebanon.
He said all Syrian forces had pulled back to the Bekaa Valley or crossed into Syria. "There are just some logistics left. But the people went, all of them," he added.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan expects Syria to fully withdraw its forces before Lebanon's May elections, UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen said after briefing Annan on his recent talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Mr Roed-Larsen declined to say if Assad had committed himself to that timetable.
In Washington, a US State Department official expressed scepticism the Syrians intended to be out by May.
The US says a Syrian withdrawal is needed for the parliamentary elections to be fair and demands the disarmament of Shia Muslim Hizbollah guerrillas.
But Hizbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, has vowed to keep its guns to fight Israel rather than confining itself to politics as demanded by US President George W. Bush.
Deepening Lebanon's political crisis, key opposition leader Walid Jumblatt said he and his allies would not join a government as long as pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud remained in office.
That stance could wreck a bid to forge a unity government by pro-Syrian Prime Minister Omar Karami, who resigned on February 28th under opposition pressure but was reappointed last week.
Syria bowed to international demands for a troop withdrawal after huge Beirut street protests sparked by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in a February 14th bombing.