BEIRUT - Syrian troops began what is supposed to be their final redeployment in Lebanon Monday, shortly after a meeting between the two countries' leaders, in line with President Bashar Assad's speech Saturday before Syrian Parliament.

The forces began to leave their posts on the hilltops surrounding Beirut, heading toward the eastern Bekaa Valley early in the afternoon.

Even while Assad and President Emile Lahoud were meeting, Syrian soldiers based in the Lebanese mountain towns of Hammana, Mdairij, Sofar and Aley were dismantling communications equipment or loading personal belongings and military gear on military trucks, witnesses said.

Some trucks with equipment and a few dozen soldiers from several positions then headed toward to their new positions, while other soldiers stayed behind.

Lebanese Army troops in trucks waited near a Syrian military post at Dahr al-Wahsh in the hilltops east of Beirut as the Syrian troops prepared to leave, the witnesses said.

Talking to The Daily Star, a Syrian soldier in the Bekaa who refused to give his name said that his base, which usually contains around 3,000 soldiers, was prepared to receive about 3,500 other soldiers who have withdrawn from Hammana, Sofar and other areas.

Syrian troops have stayed put for the past couple of days, since Damascus' decision to bring home its 15,000 troops from its neighboring country.

This month's announced pullback would be the biggest move since Syrian forces intervened in Lebanon's civil war in 1976.

Five Syrian redeployments in Lebanon have taken place since June 2001, reducing the number of Syrian troops from 40,000 to 15,000 today.

At the summit meeting in Damascus between Lahoud and Assad, the two leaders agreed that Syrian forces stationed in Lebanon would redeploy to the Bekaa Valley by the end of March, in compliance with the Taif Accord, which ended the Lebanese civil war in 1989.

The Taif Accord stipulated any Syrian pullout would begin with redeployment to the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, bordering Syria.

In principle, the 1989 deal foresaw that pullback beginning after a two-year transition period, something that was delayed for almost 15 years.