WASHINGTON – With international pressure mounting, Syria over the weekend began preparations to pull its 14,000 troops out of Lebanon.

The Lebanese defense minister told the Associated Press that the withdrawal would begin today. “The Syrian withdrawal will begin Monday directly after the meeting in Damascus of the Syrian and Lebanese leaderships,” Abdul Rahim Murad said.

The redeployment of troops is a victory for protesters in Beirut who have occupied the capital for more than a week, asking for the Syrian military and intelligence services to leave. Official word from Syria, however, is that its army for now is only redeploying to the eastern part of Lebanon in the Bekaa Valley, as envisioned by the 1989 Taif Accord. That agreement required Syria to move its army to the Lebanese border with Syria and then to begin negotiations for a final withdrawal no later than 1992.

“This regime is tricky, they are under pressure,” the founder of the new Baghdad-based Association of the Free Reformers, Mithal al-Alusi, said in an interview yesterday. “The major point for the West to remember about the Syrian regime is that they are dictators and a criminal mafia.”

Mr. al-Alusi, who as an Iraqi politician has blasted the Syrians for harboring leaders of the Baathist insurgency in his country, termed the recent alliance between Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria a powerful contingent that is opposed to a full Syrian withdrawal, which many members of the Lebanese government’s opposition have been demanding since last month’s assassination of the country’s former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. Indeed, Hezbollah’s leadership announced yesterday that it will be organizing demonstrations in favor of a continued Syrian occupation of Lebanon, an effort perhaps connected to Syria’s role in the trans-shipment of arms to the militia’s base in the Bekaa Valley.

The Iranian government, largely credited with training and creating Hezbollah in the 1980s during Lebanon’s civil war, warned that the calls for Syrian withdrawal could be a result of Israeli pressure. The country’s official news agency yesterday quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, as saying his country would respect a withdrawal agreement between Lebanon and Syria.

He also warned: “The important point here is that the pressure being exerted on the Syrian government on the issue is according to a preplanned scheme by the Zionist lobbies to guarantee the survival of the expansionist policies of Israel.” The Israeli Defense Forces withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000.

Over the weekend, the Syrian leader, Bashar Assad, addressed his Parliament and said he would begin the negotiations for the withdrawal of the army. The announcement came after Mr. Assad traveled to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he was urged by his ally, Crown Prince Abdullah, to begin the full withdrawal at the earliest date. Saudi pressure was coupled in the last few days by a statement from the Russian foreign ministry and renewed calls from President Bush warning the Syrians against half-measures and further influence in Lebanese politics.

Speaking on Fox News, a counselor to the president, Dan Bartlett, said, “We’ll continue to make clear that they understand that the international community is not going to stand by and let Assad continue to have these type of half-measures, but to live up to his international demands.” The White House and the French government have made it explicitly clear that they expect the withdrawal of Syrian intelligence services from Lebanon as well.

As The New York Sun reported Friday, the Bush administration is eyeing a number of proposals on how best to fill the void left by the withdrawal of Syrian soldiers, with the Pentagon favoring increased training of Lebanon’s national army, while some in the State Department are eyeing a plan to expand the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.

Lebanese opposition leaders were skeptical of the talk of withdrawal, according to the AP yesterday. “President Assad’s speech was a political announcement. What the Lebanese are waiting for is implementation of this announcement,” the opposition legislator, Fares Soeid, told the wire service.

The president of the largely exile based Reform Party of Syria, Farid Ghadry, said in an interview in Washington that he thought the stirrings in Beirut would inspire the Syrian people to demand the right of self determination themselves. “The flowers bloomed in Lebanon and the Syrian people are smelling them in Syria,” he said. “I think there is a whiff of freedom sweeping the Middle East and sweeping the region. I just talked to an opposition leader in Damascus and he was happy, he was talkative and elated about what is going on and most important of all, he was not afraid.”

Mr. Ghadry on Wednesday is scheduled to testify before the Helsinki Commission, the organization created toward the end of the Cold War to publicize the plight of Soviet dissidents, to discuss Syrian political prisoners. He also told the Sun that he heard there may be nonviolent demonstration on March 12 in the eastern Syrian town of Qamishli to commemorate riots a year ago when pro-Baathist hooligans attacked Kurds at a soccer match there.

During the pro-Syrian demonstration yesterday in Beirut organized by Hezbollah to counter the anti-Syrian protests, a clash between the groups broke out, according to the AP. A pro-Syrian demonstrator fired at an anti-Syrian protester and wounded him, the AP reported.