After the war, 1991–2005

In the first months of 1991 the militias were disbanded, their ports and barracks taken over by the army, and in May Lebanon signed a Treaty of Brotherhood with Syria that placed its security and much of its politics under Damascus. A general amnesty in August 1991 closed the books on the war's crimes, and elections boycotted by most Christians in 1992 brought Rafiq Hariri to power and launched the reconstruction of downtown Beirut. Israel still occupied the south: its offensives of July 1993 and April 1996, with the shelling of the UN compound at Qana, killed hundreds of civilians before the army withdrew in May 2000. Families of the disappeared, artists and intellectuals slowly broke the official silence about the war, while opposition to the Syrian presence grew from 2000 onwards. The period closes with UN Resolution 1559, the forced extension of President Lahoud's term, the attack on Marwan Hamadeh and the formation of the opposition in December 2004.

By datesThe whole period in one grid of years and months: point at a date to read the day.TimelineDay after day down one line, each event beside the books' accounts of it, and where they disagree.