The National Liberal holdouts in Ain el-Remmaneh were led by Elias Hannouche ('Hannache'). Hanf and de Clerck and Malsagne place the end of their autonomy in late October 1980 (de Clerck: Lebanese Forces in control of East Beirut on 31 October); Ménargues dates the decisive Lebanese Forces assault to the second half of November. There may have been two rounds.

De Clerck and Malsagne date Lebanese Forces control of East Beirut to this day; Ménargues dates the final takeover of Ain el-Remmaneh to late November. See the note on 27 October.

Hanf records the Lebanese Front's formula as 'political pluralism, military unity'. Traboulsi describes an eight-member executive committee under Bashir Gemayel running the Lebanese Forces: three Phalange seats, two each for the National Liberals and the Tanzim, one for the Guardians of the Cedars. Ménargues notes that after Ain el-Remmaneh Bashir had every unit swap its militia badges for one common insignia.

Ménargues counts 10 dead and 62 wounded from two car bombs in Achrafieh, Bashir Gemayel's power base.

The crisis began on 20 December when Elias Hannouche, a former Tiger commander backed by Syria, seized the old National Liberal office in Zahle. After an ambush inside the town killed five Syrian soldiers on 22 December, Syrian artillery opened fire on it (Ménargues; Hanf counts an officer and five soldiers). De Clerck and Malsagne date the bombardment to 21 December and call it the first round of the battle of Zahle. Most of the former Tigers then joined the Lebanese Forces, and Syrian troops stayed positioned around the town until the siege of spring 1981.

This bomb ended a wave of attacks (17 September to 2 October 1981, about 300 dead) that de Clerck and Malsagne, after Ronen Bergman, attribute to the 'Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners', set up by Israeli officers; Bergman says its car bombs from October 1981 aimed to provoke the Palestinians into a reprisal that would justify an invasion.

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.

Jumblatt, passed over, became the government's first major opponent, and Amal was barely courted; Hanf judges the ministers able but politically weightless.

Historians describe this 'return to normal' as harsh for West Beirut. The army's first task was to evict squatters, most of them refugees from the south, and street hawkers, with no rehousing (Hanf). Police backed by bulldozers razed shanty areas in Ouzai and Raml al-Ali and fired on protesting residents (Traboulsi). Fisk describes arrests of anyone without valid papers on 3 October, when thousands of troops sealed off a whole district. Hundreds of Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims seized in these weeks disappeared.

After the Israeli advance, Lebanese Forces militiamen set up checkpoints in the Chouf and Aley; clashes with Druze fighters followed and the Israelis often mediated (Hanf). De Clerck and Malsagne date the 'Mountain War' from summer 1982, the Lebanese Forces fighting first the SSNP's Druze and then the PSP.