SYRIA may be preparing to withdraw its troops, but it has yet to make any move to dismantle the real intrument of its power in Lebanon: its pervasive military intelligence network.

There has been no clear announcement from Damascus or Beirut on the status of the Mukhabarat, or secret intelligence service, which represents the real power in Lebanon.

Syria’s military intelligence in Lebanon is headed by Brigadier-General Rustom Ghazali, who runs his network from a base near the Syrian border.

Before he was promoted in October 2002, he ran operations in Beirut from the seafront Beau Rivage hotel inthe western half of the city. Syrian Intelligence is thought to have about 20 offices in the country as well as officers stationed in strategic places, such as the Defence Ministry and Beirut international airport.

Until recently few Lebanese would dare to question General Ghazali’s authority. A Human Rights Watch report in 1997 quoted a Lebanese citizen who claimed to have been interrogated by the intelligence chief after being beaten on the legs with a block of wood.

“We will do this until you speak,” he quoted his interrogators as saying. “If you do not tell us the truth, we will bring your wife and daughters and humiliate you.”

Last September Rafik Hariri, then the Lebanese Prime Minister, whose murder last month sparked anti-Syrian protests, returned from holiday in Sardinia with his shoulder in a cast. His press office said that the 58-year-old premier had slipped in the bath.

But a rumour soon circulated around Beirut that his injury was caused by none other than General Ghazali, who had smashed the billionaire’s shoulder with a rifle butt. It was a less than subtle gesture, so the story went, to persuade Hariri to approve a Syrian- ordained decision to extend the presidential mandate of his political nemesis, Emile Lahoud. Whether true or not, Hariri instructed his parliamentary bloc to vote for the extension, contrary to speculation that he would abstain.

Writing in Beirut’s English-language Daily Star newspaper last week, Patrick Seale, a veteran journalist and confidant of Syria’s ruling Assad family, wrote that General Ghazali “has been widely held responsible for the crude way in which the extension of Lahoud’s mandate was handled”, and called for the general to be removed.

“It is the gross interference of Syrian intelligence agents, and their Lebanese counterparts, in almost every aspect of Lebanese life that has rallied the opposition and created a strong current of anti-Syrian opinion,” Seale wrote.

General Ghazali has left his headquarters in the Bekaa town of Anjar and returned to Syria on leave. It is not clear whether he will return to Lebanon or whether his deputy, Brigadier-General Mounir Jalloud, will take charge formally.

The Syrian network has infiltrated and corrupted much of Lebanon’s judiciary and security bodies, a former Lebanese intelligence officer said.

“If you want to remain strong, you ignore your chain of command and work directly for the nearest Syrian military intelligence office,” he said. “By obeying the Syrians, you stay protected.” But Mr Hariri’s death provided a cathartic release from the fear that has allowed Syrian Intelligence to remain in control for so long.

Four days after the bombing, Walid Jumblatt, Syria’s most outspoken critic, said on Lebanese television that “there is no way to convince the Lebanese, not even a single one, that Syria’s Mukhabarat hasn’t murdered Hariri or is innocent of his blood”.

Chibli Mallat, Professor of International Law at St Joseph University in Beirut, said that the Syrian intelligence network could not survive in its current shape. “I don’t think that, frankly, these people are capable of staying without the larger military apparatus that provides them cover,” he said.

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