BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's opposition on Wednesday demanded Syrian troops and intelligence agents leave their country and Syrian-backed Lebanese security chiefs resign. The opposition said in a statement that pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud must accept the demands before they would join any discussions on forming a new government. Two weeks of demonstrations forced the pro-Syrian government of Prime Minister Omar Karami to quit Monday, leaving officials with a complex search for a new head of government. "The ... step that the opposition considers essential in its demands on the road to salvation and independence is the total withdrawal of the Syrian army and intelligence service from Lebanon," said the statement read by MP Ahmad Fatfat.

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Russia and Germany joined an international chorus of demands for Syria to leave Lebanon, and President Bashar al-Assad was expected to travel to Saudi Arabia on Thursday for talks diplomats said would focus on a pullout.  "Syria should withdraw from Lebanon, but we all have to make sure that this withdrawal does not violate the very fragile balance which we still have in Lebanon, which is a very difficult country ethnically," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the BBC late on Wednesday. Russia, Syria's main Cold War ally and still one of its best friends, abstained when the U.N. Security Council adopted U.S.- and French-sponsored Resolution 1559 in September calling for foreign forces to leave Lebanon and militias to disarm.

WASHINGTON, March 2 - President Bush raised the pressure on Syria today, saying the world was "speaking with one voice" in demanding that Damascus pull its troops from Lebanon.A State Department official, meanwhile, expressed skepticism about a new Syrian vow to withdraw. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, seeking to defuse international pressure, pledged in an interview with Time magazine this week that his troops would leave "maybe in the next few months." He qualified this, however, saying that the redeployment of 14,000 troops would require extensive and time-consuming preparations. Mr. Bush, speaking at a community college in Arnold, Md., applauded the message Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had delivered a day earlier in London. She said that Damascus was "out of step" with the world's desires for a free Lebanon. Her French counterpart, Michel Barnier, who appeared with her, agreed.

BEIRUT (AFP) - The Lebanese opposition stepped up its demands for an end to Syria's political and military domination as the beleaguered pro-Damascus president struggled to find a new prime minister.  The opposition movement, riding on a wave of massive popular protests that led to the dramatic fall of the Syrian-backed government two days ago, was to meet later Wednesday to plan its next political moves. As the political crisis triggered by the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri last month deepened, the United States intensified its pressure on Lebanon's political masters in Syria.