Under the Riyadh decisions of October 1976 all parties were to give up heavy weapons to the Arab Deterrent Force; the Hoss government set a 5 December 1976 deadline (Traboulsi). Fisk reports the militias did not hand them in; Hanf, that the Palestinians moved most of theirs south of the 'red line'.

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.

For Hanf, early 1982 showed Muslim opinion shifting: Beirut's old leaders and clergy closed ranks against the National Movement's district-council elections and outnumbered it on the streets in March.

Geneva's leaders agreed on Lebanon's 'Arab identity'. Fisk saw two reconciliations: Camille Chamoun ended five years of silence with Suleiman Frangieh, and Frangieh's public embrace of Amin Gemayel seemed to close their families' feud.

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.

Sources differ on when the shelling stopped: the original entry has it continuing until the security plan of 4 July, while de Clerck and Malsagne date the systematic bombardment of Christian residential districts from the 17 May 1983 agreement to its abrogation on 5 March 1984.

De Clerck and Malsagne say Edmond Naim succeeded Michel el-Khoury at the Central Bank because both the militia chiefs and the unity cabinet could accept him.

The meetings produced no agreement (Hanf).

Fisk's account puts the kidnapping on 28 May 1985.

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).