BEIRUT - Syria neared the completion of its troop pullout from Lebanon Sunday after three decades of political and military domination, while the Beirut regime's once powerful and highly secretive security apparatus appeared to be crumbling.

Lebanon's official ANI news agency said that all Syrian troops bar a token force scheduled to take the salute at a farewell ceremony in Tuesday had now crossed the border.

"Syrian forces have completed the sixth and final stage of their pullout from Lebanon, in accordance with the Taef agreement (of 1989 which paved the way for the end of the Lebanese civil war) and the timetable set by the joint military committee," the news agency said.

"Large numbers of military convoys, some made up of more than 400 vehicles, including tanks, artillery pieces and troop transporters, passed through the Masnaa border crossing during the afternoon.

"There is now only a token force which will take part in the ceremony being held in their honour Tuesday at the Rayak air base" in eastern Lebanon, ANI said.

UN teams are due in Lebanon Monday to verify the Syrian withdrawal, required by a Security Council resolution passed last September demanding the departure of all foreign troops. UN chief Kofi Annan is scheduled to gove a compliance report on Tuesday.

Damascus's decision to withdraw was made under intense international pressure following the February 14 bomb blast that killed five-times prime minister Rafiq Hariri, and which was blamed by many on the Lebanese regime and
its political masters in Syria.

Hariri's son Saadeddine was due to be received by US Vice President Dick Cheney in Dallas, Texas later Sunday, the White House said.

Syria has been the main power broker in neighbouring Lebanon since it first deployed troops there a year after the 1975 outbreak of the Lebanese civil war, and further tightened its grip after the conflict ended in 1990.

Damascus's control extended through Lebanon's security services and its allies who tightly controlled political and economic life and were untouchable until recently.

Emboldened by the international pressure on Syria and huge street protests in Beirut since Hariri's murder, the Lebanese opposition has secured an agreement from the new Prime Minister Nagib Miqati for the departure of top security chiefs and the public prosecutor.

Powerful general security chief General Jamil Sayyed, a central figure of the pro-Syrian regime in the past decade, and internal security forces head General Ali Hajj offered Friday to step aside during the UN probe into Hariri's killing.

In what was seen as a significant sign of the new political environment, new Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa, a figure close to the opposition, reprimanded Sayyed the next day, apparently over procedural matters.

"The mask of the security regime has fallen. Symbols of the security regime might try to buy extra time or take revenge, but nothing will turn back the clock," said Samir Qassir, a leading editorialist in the top-selling An-Nahar newspaper.

"The mask did not only fall because Jamil Sayyed decided to step aside, but because there is finally an interior minister who said 'enough'... and because politicians did not remain silent... and journalists untied their tongues," he
said.

Al-Mustaqbal daily accused public prosecutor Adnan Addum of "putting himself at the service of security services for many long years" by prosecuting anyone opposing the pro-Syrian regime.

MP Bassem Sabaa, a Shiite Muslim member of the parliamentary bloc of key opposition leader Druze MP Walid Jumblatt, said Saturday: "When I see a Syrian officer bidding farewell ... I have the right to see a Lebanese officer bidding farewell to political life in Lebanon."

Change has also been seen on the ground by journalists monitoring the Syrian troop movements who have recently even been allowed to sit with the feared head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, Brigadier General Rustom Ghazaleh.

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