Hanf: Syria, isolated among Arab states, reluctantly accepted the Lebanon commission the Arab League's Council of Ministers set up on 12 January under Kuwait's foreign minister. Iraq launched it to check Syria.

In January 1989 Walid Jumblatt made his strongest appeal yet for displaced Christians to return to the Chouf and Aley. Dany Chamoun attended the conference Jumblatt held; Samir Geagea did not. According to Hanf, few displaced people returned.

The dates differ: Hanf says Amal and Hezbollah suspended their war on 25 January, and also writes that the Syrian-Iranian ceasefire took until the spring. De Clerck and Malsagne date the ceasefire to February 1989. Picard names Syria and Iran as sponsors. Death tolls depend on the source and the period: some sources put civilian deaths at about 2,000 for 1988-1990 (de Clerck and Malsagne); an al-Nahar-based count gives 635 dead across 147 incidents between 1985 and 1991; Georges Corm estimated 2,000 dead for 1988-1989.

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

Hanf cites estimates of 15,000 troops under Aoun and 10,000 militiamen, both sides heavily armed by Iraq, and dates the outbreak of heavy army-Lebanese Forces fighting to 10 February, Aoun accusing the militia of plotting a coup. De Clerck and Malsagne date the first clash to 14 February.

De Clerck and Malsagne date the first army-LF clash to 14 February: after 18 hours of fighting the army had the upper hand. Hanf dates the start to 10 February.

De Clerck and Malsagne have a truce under the Maronite Patriarch's patronage from 17 February. Hanf says Aoun accepted a ceasefire once the militia agreed to hand over Dock Five of the port and the Bourbara checkpoint.

Hanf reports that within a week the dollar dropped from LL502 to LL450 and that state customs income rose quickly, though the Lebanese Forces honoured their February 1989 undertaking only in part. The army received Dock Five, the country's main customs post, and the Barbara checkpoint (Hanf spells it 'Bourbara').

Hanf puts Aoun's order to blockade Khalde, Jiyeh and Ouzai, the ports held by the PSP and Amal, on 3 March; de Clerck and Malsagne place the closure of the illegal ports on 6 March. Syria had warned Aoun against acting beyond 'his' area. Beirut and Jounieh harbours and the airport then all shut, Syrian and PSP guns shelling the first two, the army the third.

On this day Aoun declared a 'war of liberation' against Syria. De Clerck and Malsagne say Syrian shelling of Christian areas and of the Ministry of Defence came first that day. Traboulsi and Picard say Aoun's artillery hit West Beirut and Syrian positions there. Picard's chronology dates the war from 14 March to 22 September.

Hanf: the Cyprus ferry had to stop for a while, since Syrian artillery could reach every Christian port. From 21 March Syria and its militia allies also shut every crossing into Aoun's territory, in Beirut, the mountains and the north.

De Clerck and Malsagne do not mention the ceremony, but they record a rally outside the Lebanese embassy in Paris that day: more than 2,000 people, brought together by Frédérique Deniau under the slogan 'We are all Lebanese', among them Jean d'Ormesson, Françoise Giroud, Abbé Pierre, André Glucksmann and Claude Mauriac.

Hanf: when Damascus protested, Paris called envoy Deniau's description of Syria as the aggressor in Lebanon his 'private opinion'.

Badly wounded people from East and West Beirut were evacuated on French ships. Hanf says France sent its hospital ship and petrol tanker to back Aoun, then, after Syrian threats, called them humanitarian aid for all Lebanese.

De Clerck and Malsagne list the Spanish ambassador among the ambassadors killed during the war. They date his death to 16 April 1989 and attribute it to Syrian shelling.

Hanf reads Aoun's acceptance of the Tunis appeal as dropping the steps against illegal militia ports that had set off the confrontation.

Lakhdar Brahimi was Deputy (assistant) Secretary-General of the Arab League, not its Secretary-General. After the Casablanca summit he headed the troika's secretariat in Jeddah.

Hanf notes that since the 1988 presidential election failed, the Mufti had acted as a go-between for the Aoun and Hoss cabinets; his killing was taken as a warning to anyone dealing with Aoun.

The committee was set up at the Arab summit in Casablanca, which opened on 23 May 1989 (Hanf).

Hanf dates a joint declaration by Presidents Gorbachev and Mitterrand on Lebanon, welcoming the Arab troika's efforts, to 5 June 1989.

According to Hanf and Fisk, the embassy closed after demonstrations by Aoun's supporters. A first youth protest at the embassy, against Western 'silence', took place in April 1989.

Hanf says Kadri had lobbied deputies to press for Syria's withdrawal from the Bekaa before Taif. He groups the killing with those of Bashir Gemayel, Kamal Jumblatt, Hassan Khaled and Mohammed Shukair, all of which, in his view, plainly benefited Syria.