Syrian intelligence leaves empty cells in Beirut
Reuters
Date: 03-16-05
By Cynthia Johnston
BEIRUT, March 16 (Reuters) - The building with long balconies overlooking Beirut's seafront could be any ordinary apartment block -- save for 10 dim cells in the basement where Syrian intelligence agents once detained Lebanese.
Syrian officers moved out of their Beirut headquarters on Wednesday in the seaside Ramlet al-Baida district, ending a decades-long presence in the Lebanese capital. A small bulldozer demolished two guard posts while trucks loaded office equipment and drove away.
Nearly all intelligence offices across north Lebanon and the mountains east of Beirut were also vacated overnight, witnesses and security sources said, bringing Syria closer to meeting U.S. and opposition demands that it quit Lebanon entirely.
"Thank God, we are happy. We feel relieved," whispered one Lebanese soldier as he stood guard outside another building where Syrian intelligence officers once lived.
Syria's often feared intelligence apparatus has been a key element in its political and military domination of Lebanon since Syrian troops first intervened early in the country's 1975-1990 civil war.
In the basement where Syrian intelligence once held Lebanese in a makeshift jail, the word "Freedom" was scrawled on the wall outside 10 empty cells, the doors stripped off and the cell walls freshly painted light blue.
The only light was provided by tiny windows. Upstairs, an office used by Syrian intelligence was stripped bare except for a dusty desk and a battered white ceiling fan. A paper sign taped to the door by the Lebanese army warned entry was barred.
Lebanese army officers closely guarding the building said that while the Syrians had used several floors, ordinary Lebanese lived on other storeys.
SOLDIERS TAKE OVER
Lebanese soldiers, dressed in camouflage, took over positions at a handful of vacated Syrian offices and flats, some in unfinished buildings and others in apartment blocks bearing old scars of mortar shells and gunfire from the civil war.
Pro-Syrian graffiti scrawled on a nearby wall bid the Syrians good-bye: "Let (George W.) Bush know that the martyrs of the Syrian army died defending our land, Beirut."
Syria poured troops into Lebanon early in the civil war to protect Christians from defeat by Muslim, leftist and Palestinian forces. It later turned on them when they sided with arch-foe Israel.
When the Syrians left at noon in trucks laden with furniture, about 20 people with flags and pictures of slain former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri went in to celebrate.
"I only want to have Lebanese soldiers in my country. They are our children and they are our friends," said Jumana Tabara, who cried in joy after stopping to see the headquarters.
Security staff removed pictures of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his late father Hafez from an apartment block where officers had lived. But some Lebanese said they feared that Syrian intelligence would still hold sway in Beirut.
"They left on the surface, but they are still here. They are just not visible," said Suleiman Itani as he stood leaning on a car on a nearby street.
"They could be inside apartments and among the people," he added. "There is still fear."
Source
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