BEIRUT, Lebanon - A U.N. team visited several former Syrian military bases in east Lebanon on Tuesday in their first field mission to verify whether Damascus withdrew all its forces from its tiny neighbor.

The eight-member team, which arrived in Beirut last week, checked at least seven sites previously used by the Syrian troops and intelligence agents in the Bekaa Valley, security sources said.

"They started today and will check other posts tomorrow as well," one security source told Reuters.

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Syria told the United Nations it had ended its 29-year military and intelligence presence in Lebanon and fully complied with resolution 1559.

But U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the U.N. verification mission would have to confirm that.

Witnesses said the team, which was accompanied by officers from the Lebanese army, stopped for few minutes at each site, including the house of the former head of Syrian intelligence in the ancient town of Baalbek, Major Ali Safi.

Syria entered Lebanon early in the 1975-1990 civil war and has dominated Lebanon militarily and politically since, meeting little international opposition until a U.N. Security Council resolution in September demanded it withdraw.

Pressure on Syria to end its grip mounted after the Feb. 14 killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, which many Lebanese blamed on Damascus. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in March ordered his 14,000 troops home.

Syria and Lebanon said on Tuesday a joint military committee would check to see whether an old Syrian border post was on right side of the frontier.

The post has been near the village of Deir al-Ashayier since before 1976 when Syria rushed troops into Lebanon to help end the war. Some Lebanese say it is about 300 meters (yards) inside Lebanon, others say it is in Syria.   (Reuters)