UN team returning to Lebanon to verify Syrian pullout

UNITED NATIONS -- UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has decided to send a UN verification team back to Lebanon to see if Syrian intelligence agents are still in the country, UN officials and diplomats said yesterday. No date has been set for the mission.

Syria's UN ambassador yesterday denied President Bush's claim that Damascus was still interfering in Lebanon's affairs, calling the allegation part of ''a smear campaign" and maintaining that all Syrian intelligence operatives have withdrawn.

Fayssal Mekdad was responding to concerns raised earlier at the White House by Bush that Syrian intelligence officers were still operating in Lebanon in violation of a UN Security Council resolution demanding the withdrawal of all troops and intelligence operatives.

In comments clearly aimed at the Bush administration, he said the ''smear campaign" reflects displeasure at the results of recent elections in Lebanon and is an attempt ''to deepen differences between different Lebanese forces, and to create problems for a constructive relationship between Syria and Lebanon."

Mekdad said in an interview that the recent report by a UN verification team ''confirmed that Syria has fully withdrawn its troops, intelligence, and assets." Syrian troops entered Lebanon in 1976 after the start of that country's civil war.

However, the report said the team could not ''conclude with certainty that all the intelligence apparatus has been withdrawn" because ''intelligence activities are by nature often clandestine."

Syria has said all its military and intelligence officials left Lebanon by April 26. But Lebanese opposition leader Walid Jumblatt asserted earlier this week that Syrian intelligence officials had been spotted in the eastern Bekaa Valley and central Lebanon.

''I've been disturbed by reports I read in today's newspaper that said that Syrian intelligence officers might still be in Lebanon," Bush said in Washington yesterday.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the United States remains ''deeply concerned about Syria's interference and intimidation inside Lebanon." US officials have accused Syrian intelligence operatives of interfering in Lebanon's internal affairs, including upcoming elections.

McClellan said Syria's long presence had established a lingering ''environment of intimidation."

''We want to see those elections that are occurring now to proceed in a free and fair manner without any outside interference or intimidation," he said.

''Syria has not fully complied with the Security Council resolution and the demands of the international community" to withdraw all its forces from Lebanon, the spokesman added.

McClellan declined to discuss details of Syria's alleged continued involvement in Lebanon, saying he wouldn't comment on ''intelligence matters."