Historians date the entry of Syrian regular troops to 1 June 1976 (Ménargues gives 9 June). President Assad announced it in the presence of the visiting Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin, citing appeals from the Akkar villages of Qubayat and Andaqit, besieged since January and attacked by the Lebanese Arab Army on 27 May. Columns moved towards Akkar and Tripoli, Zahleh and the Bekaa, and Sidon by way of Jezzine. Estimates of the force range from 6,000 men at the start (with 260 armoured vehicles, according to Ménargues) to 12,000-15,000 within weeks, with 250-300 tanks (de Clerck and Malsagne).

De Clerck and Malsagne have Iranian clerics and activists settling in the Bekaa, and then in Tyre, from 1980, before 500 to 2,000 Revolutionary Guards entered Lebanon in June 1982.

The attempt on Walid Jumblatt left him only slightly hurt. Hanf sees it as one more spur to Druze mobilisation, which put about 30,000 men under arms.

On 29 January the Druze resumed attacking the army at Souk al-Gharb, after Shi'i militia sniping at the army and French troops from mid-January, Hanf's next escalation.

Fisk's figures for December 1984 alone: some hundred attacks on Israeli forces in the south, with three Israeli soldiers, seventeen of Lahad's militiamen and eight collaborators killed.

Hanf says that once the Tripartite Agreement had been signed, on 28 December 1985, Hobeika turned Lebanese Forces units against militias loyal to President Gemayel and the Kataeb.

Historians describe the collapse of real wages behind such decrees: against 1974, the statutory minimum wage kept 13 percent of its buying power at the end of 1986 (Hanf, after Abou Rjaily and Labaki).

Karami had announced his resignation on 4 May. Who was responsible is disputed: Hanf (1993) writes that it was never established who planted the bomb in the army helicopter; de Clerck and Malsagne report that it was attributed to Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces, and Picard notes that Geagea was later tried for it. Selim al-Hoss, Minister of Education, became acting prime minister; the cabinet never met again and governed by circulated decrees.

Hanf: Aoun told the Tunis meeting he could settle Lebanese differences himself once Syria withdrew; Hoss and Husseini put reform first.