BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria’s military will complete its withdrawal from eastern Lebanon in the next 48 hours and its security chiefs will go a day later, a senior security source said on Saturday, completing their pullout earlier than planned. The source said Rustum Ghazaleh, the Syrian intelligence chief in Lebanon, would be the last to leave after a farewell ceremony in the Bekaa Valley on Tuesday. The special military road that links the two countries will be closed behind him and the Lebanese Army will take over the Syrian intelligence headquarters in the town of Anjar.

Syria is racing to end its 29-year military and intelligence presence in Lebanon in line with a United Nations Security Council resolution passed in September. It has promised to be out by April 30 but will beat its deadline by four days.

Syria, whose forces entered Lebanon early in the 1975-1990 civil war, has dominated its tiny neighbor since the war ended.

It had some 14,000 troops stationed in Lebanon before it began pulling them out in the face of international pressure and Lebanese protest.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan overrode U.S. objections to delay for a week until Tuesday a report on whether Syria was complying with the demand that it withdraw.