Dates differ. De Clerck and Malsagne's chronology has the Lebanese Forces controlling East Beirut from 31 October 1980. Ménargues puts the LF's 48-hour assault on Ain al-Remmaneh, held by Elias Hannouche's Chamounists, ten days after the 10 November car bombs, around 20 November 1980.

After the December 1980 clashes in Zahleh, Syrian troops gave up their checkpoints inside the town but kept it under blockade (Hanf). Ménargues, however, says ADF checkpoints were still on the town's main roads when Lebanese Forces fighters seized them in the first days of April 1981.

Fisk: after shells killed two Nigerian UNIFIL soldiers in March 1981, the force commander, General William Callaghan, blamed Israeli gunners rather than Haddad's militia.

The meeting was called after Begin told the Knesset on 4 June of his promises to Lebanon's Christians. The Arab envoys asked Bashir Gemayel to break with Israel; he demanded guarantees in return (Hanf, Ménargues).

Ménargues has some 600 Internal Security Forces gendarmes entering Zahleh on 30 June, ending the siege, and the 95 fighters from outside the town leaving by bus over a mountain road behind a Syrian colonel's car, past Syrian troops posted along it; Hanf says they left under Saudi escort. Siege toll: 200 dead and over 2,000 wounded (Ménargues), over 200 and 2,000 (de Clerck and Malsagne), 300 and 3,000 by the Phalange's count (Fisk).

Ménargues dates the bombing to 16 December. The six-storey embassy at Ramlet al-Baida was destroyed by an explosives-laden car driven by Shiite suicide attackers; a group nobody knew claimed it, and the ambassador's body took four days to find. It followed heavy fighting in West Beirut on 4 December between Amal and pro-Iraqi Baathists, and a Lebanese Forces visit to Baghdad.