Syrian troops have left Lebanon, UN says

UNITED NATIONS - A United Nations verification team has concluded that Syria has fully withdrawn its military forces from Lebanon in line with a Security Council demand, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said.

But the team's report, released shortly after Annan's comments, hedged on whether all Syrian intelligence agents had been pulled out.

"The withdrawal of the Syrian intelligence apparatus has been harder to verify because intelligence activities are, by nature, often clandestine," the report said.

The team "has been unable to conclude with certainty that all the intelligence apparatus has been withdrawn", it said.

In Washington, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Syria still had to withdraw intelligence personnel from its tiny neighbour.

"We cannot rest. Syria must also remove its intelligence forces and allow the Lebanese people to be free," Rice said in a speech to a powerful pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.

Annan said: "We have verified all have withdrawn, including the border area."

"Lebanon should be free of all foreign forces today," he said after presenting the team's report to a luncheon meeting of the 15-nation council.

Syria had promised to be out by April 30, and had sent a letter to the council a few days before that date asserting it had fully withdrawn all its military and intelligence troops.

But Annan had said he would wait to comment until the verification team had completed its work.

Syria has dominated Lebanon politically until recently, stationing 17,000 soldiers in the country after flooding Lebanon with its troops during the 1975-1990 civil war.

While the council resolution gave no deadline for full withdrawal, Lebanon's anti-Syrian opposition, its former colonial power France, Annan, the United States and many other governments have called for the pull-out to be completed before Lebanese elections due to begin on Sunday.

- REUTERS