Syria said yesterday it would move it troops out of Lebanon as the government in that country quit. Here is a factbox on Lebanese-Syrian relations.

DRAWING BORDERS

Britain and France carved out modern-day Syria and Lebanon from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, in a division never fully recognized by some Arab nationalists.

INDEPENDENCE

Lebanon won full independence in 1943 and Syria in 1946. Both fought the new state of Israel in 1948-49 and took in many Palestinian refugees.

NAGGING TENSIONS

Lebanon refused to join Syria's 1958 union with Egypt. Arab nationalist propaganda from Cairo and Damascus demanded the return to Syria of mainly Muslim parts of Lebanon.

PALESTINIAN FACTOR

Relations worsened in the late 1960s due to Syrian and Egyptian support for Palestinian guerrillas hostile to the Beirut government. Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, who took power in 1970, curbed the guerrillas in Syria.

CIVIL WAR

Sectarian tensions in Lebanon, fuelled by Palestinian guerrilla activity, erupted into civil war in April 1975. Syrian troops intervened in June 1976.

ISRAELI INVASION

Israel invaded south Lebanon in 1978 and set up an occupation zone. It mounted a full-scale invasion in 1982, forcing Syrian troops to withdraw to the Bekaa Valley.

END GAME

In 1988 parliament failed to elect a successor to President Amin Gemayel. In August 1990, parliament enacted the Taif Accord, which became Lebanon's new constitution.

POSTWAR YEARS

Lebanon held its first postwar election in October 1992 and Rafik al-Hariri, the Sunni Muslim billionaire who sponsored the Taif Conference, became prime minister. He quit in 1998, losing a power struggle with Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud, but returned after winning elections in 2000.

PRESSURE ON SYRIA

In September 2004, a UN Security Council ordered Syria to pull its forces out of Lebanon and stop meddling in its politics. Hariri resigned in October. He was killed by a powerful bomb blast in Beirut on February 14, 2005.