Assad has got the message -- or has he?

The Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon is beginning to accelerate.

IHT reports:

Syrian intelligence agents moved out of their Beirut headquarters early on Wednesday, witnesses said, a step toward meeting U.S. and Lebanese opposition demands for an end to Syria's influence in Lebanon.
....
In Beirut, the witnesses said, a bulldozer demolished two guard posts, trucks loaded with office equipment drove away and the last intelligence officers left the headquarters in a seafront district.

The Syrians also removed pictures of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and
his late father, Hafez al-Assad, from around the building before driving away.

Syria's often feared intelligence apparatus has been a key element in its political and military influence over Lebanon since its troops first intervened early in the 1975-90 civil war.

A Lebanese security source said he expected all Syrian intelligence agents in Beirut, the north and the Mount Lebanon area overlooking the capital to have moved to eastern Lebanon by Wednesday night. He put their number at 150 to 200. For now, Syrian intelligence retains its Lebanon headquarters in the Bekaa region town of Anjar, but the closing of the Beirut office indicated that Syria had almost completed the first phase of a withdrawal from Lebanon announced 10 days ago.

Read it here.

This is more than grudging cosmetic compliance. It appears that in the wake of the mass demonstrations Assad has finally realized that this is a confrontation he cannot expect to win. I am, though, still concerned by the insistence of maintaining troops and intelligence services in the Bekaa.