The aged and battered Syrian Army truck lumbered to a halt in a thick cloud of gray diesel smoke as a soldier shoved a rock beneath a back wheel and another lifted the hood to inspect the engine.

It was not an auspicious start to the redeployment of 14,000 Syrian soldiers from Lebanon, which formally got under way Monday following a presidential summit in Damascus.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said that Syrian troops will immediately pull back from northern and central Lebanon to the Bekaa Valley in the east, near Syria's border. But a complete troop withdrawal will be deferred until after later negotiations. And for many Lebanese, the departure of Syrian troops is far less relevant than the dismantling of Syria's extensive intelligence network.

"The Syrian military intelligence is involved in everything from the border of Israel in the south to the border of Syria in the north. They are running the military, the economy, and the politics of Lebanon," says a retired Lebanese military intelligence officer.

There has been no comment yet from Damascus on the future of Syrian military-intelligence agents in Lebanon, but analysts here doubt that they can remain once the regular army has left.

Still, Syrian troops are apparently feeling more vulnerable than usual given the recent unprecedented outpouring of anti-Syrian sentiment on the streets of central Beirut.

A hand grenade thrown on Friday from a passing car at a Syrian position in the Bekaa town of Baalbek underlined the vulnerability of Syrian forces.

Indeed, Syria is looking to the Lebanese Army to provide security for Syrian military units based in the Bekaa, according to a Lebanese Army officer. "They are worried about being attacked by individuals or being harassed by protesters," the Lebanese officer says, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Several residents of Anjar, a town near the Syrian border and the location of Syrian military-intelligence headquarters, were arrested for holding candlelight vigils following the Feb. 14 assassination of Rafik Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister.

The first stage of Syria's redeployment involves 4,000 to 5,000 troops moving from the mountains near Beirut and from Tripoli in the north to the Hammana-Mdeirej-Ain Dara line that cuts across this lofty mountain pass between Beirut and the Bekaa Valley.

Monday in Aley, a resort town above Beirut, Syrian troops lounged around their shell-pocked apartment buildings. There was little indication that they were preparing to leave. Washed uniforms and other laundry still hung from windows. In the Syrian camps spread along the gentle grassy slopes behind the Bekaa towns of Chtaura and Zahle, soldiers played football or lounged in the sun while sentries stood guard at the entrances decorated with the Syrian national colors and faded pictures of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad.

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