The fighting set Fatah dissidents under Abu Musa, Syrian artillery and pro-Syrian Lebanese parties against Arafat's loyalists and the Sunni Tawhid militia. Hanf writes that in early November it took on the character of a Sunni-Alawite civil war, and that Tawhid fighters killed hundreds of communists.

Fourteen Super-Étendards from the carrier Clemenceau attacked the Sheikh Abdallah barracks and the Khawam hotel, used by the Revolutionary Guards and Islamic Amal. The barracks had been evacuated after a leak, and most bombs fell on nearby hills; de Clerck and Malsagne count two dead, an Iranian and a Lebanese shepherd. The raid, code-named 'Brochet', was presented as retaliation for the Drakkar bombing.

Hanf writes that in Washington on 1 December the Americans pressed Gemayel to come to terms with the Druze and Shi'is and ruled out any change to the 17 May agreement.

US aircraft struck Syrian positions on 4 December. Fisk counts one plane brought down, with the pilot dead and the co-pilot taken prisoner (Jesse Jackson obtained his release in January 1984); Hanf counts two planes lost. Hanf also places, without a date, the deaths of eight Marines from Syrian artillery fire in the same episode.

The New Jersey fired shells, not bombs: one-ton 16-inch rounds, according to Fisk. De Clerck and Malsagne say its rounds often missed, by up to 9,000 metres, and killed civilians; Christians called it 'New Jersa', a new shame.

On 15 December, after 102 days, the siege of Deir el-Qamar ended. Israel brokered the departure of Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces and most refugees for East Beirut; the town was left mainly to its elderly.

Escorted by five French warships, Greek ships including the Odysseus carried Arafat and some 4,000 men from Tripoli to Tunis, the PLO's second evacuation from Lebanon after Beirut in 1982.

In Fisk's account Wazzan submitted his resignation that day, insisting it be accepted at once. This looks like a fresh resignation rather than acceptance of the one tendered on 26 September 1983, though Fisk also has the cabinet resigning in September 1983. Hanf has Berri appealing to Shi'i soldiers not to fire on their own people on the day the army began shelling the southern suburbs, at heavy civilian cost.

The books describe a joint Amal and PSP (Druze) offensive, not Amal alone; the mainly Shi'i Sixth Brigade went over to Amal. Hanf dates the last Christian soldiers' withdrawal to the east, and so the completed division, to 7 February. De Clerck and Malsagne record the uprising's name, 'the 6 February movement'. About 50,000 Christians moved east, almost half the public radio's 400 staff left their posts, and Télé-Liban split. A later Sunni militia took its name from the date (Hanf).

Druze militiamen in Tibiyat, east of Beirut, visited by Fisk on 13 February, said the New Jersey's shelling of the Metn and Chouf foothills had killed 24 civilians and wounded 115 (their figures). De Clerck and Malsagne note the ship's frequent misses and its Arabic nickname 'New Jersa' ('new shame').

'Porpoises' is a literal rendering of the French 'marsouins', the nickname of the French marine infantry (troupes de marine).

De Clerck and Malsagne give 14 February 1984 for the PSP's capture of the Chahhar district, part of a week-long uprising in Beirut and the mountain.

Hanf counts some 15,000 Christian civilians leaving the coastal Chouf for Israeli-occupied territory; Mechref is not named.

Sources date the Marines' departure differently. Hanf: the US announced the 'redeployment' to the ships on 7 February. De Clerck and Malsagne: the evacuation ran from 7 to 26 February, and their chronology dates the MNF withdrawal 26 February - 31 March. Fisk: a last Marine detachment guarding the embassy left on 31 July 1984. The Italians left on 20 February (Hanf).

Ménargues gives two different days for this visit: 24 February in his prologue and 26 February in another passage. Hanf and Fisk both give 29 February. Fisk notes a 21-gun salute; Hanf says Gemayel told Assad he was ready to abrogate the 17 May agreement.

Traboulsi notes Gemayel never signed the agreement, which his government formally repudiated.

Most sources give 12-20 March 1984. Picard's main text gives April 1984 and Fisk says 'spring of 1983'. Traboulsi's chronology lists Lausanne under 1983. Hanf says the conference agreed on a ceasefire and a commission on the constitution, which may be what 'constituent assembly' refers to. He also says Frangieh blocked any radical reorganisation.

Hanf dates the Mourabitoun's final destruction and Qulaylat's exile to April 1985, when Amal and the PSP combined against them.

Hanf and de Clerck and Malsagne date the departure of the last French MNF soldiers to 31 March 1984; 25 March may mark the start of the French withdrawal, which the books do not mention. France left soldiers in Beirut as ceasefire observers.

Hanf gives 3 July 1984 for the security plan's entry into force; this entry and entry 725 use 4 July. Hanf adds that the Green Line barricades were cleared at the end of July.