Historians date the start of this second round of fighting between General Aoun's army and Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces to the last days of January 1990. De Clerck and Malsagne give 31 January, when the army tried to retake positions the militia held at Furn al-Chubbak; they add that the militia's own attack had been planned for 7 February. Hanf dates the first shots to 27 January, over a school in Furn al-Chebbak that the militia refused to hand back to the Ministry of Education. Picard's chronology gives 30 January. The fighting lasted until a ceasefire in May (accounts of its end range from March to July). Aoun's side called it the war for 'unifying the guns'; it is often remembered as the 'War of Elimination'.

Hanf: the army's counter-offensive of 6 February 1990 reached the coast near Antelias and took Dbayeh, home to Lebanese Forces barracks and the militia's finance department.

Totals for the whole army-Lebanese Forces war differ. De Clerck and Malsagne count over 1,500 victims, fighters and civilians, and say the first three weeks claimed more than the six months of the 1989 war against Syria; the army alone lost 21 officers and 221 soldiers, about 100,000 people moved elsewhere in Lebanon and close to 200,000 went abroad. Hanf estimates about 1,000 dead and 3,500 wounded; Picard 1,000 dead and 3,000 wounded for January-July; Fisk 'well over a thousand' dead in Beirut from end January to end May.

Colonel Paul Fares declared himself head of a 'neutral army' on 10 February 1990, as a Lebanese Forces push on the army's Kleiat mountain position stalled (Hanf).

Hanf: after the army took Ain al-Rummaneh on 16 February 1990, having attacked the eastern suburbs on the 11th, the Lebanese Forces fell back to Ashrafieh through West Beirut. A Reuters reporter with the troops said it was 'like an earthquake had hit it'.

Aoun lost almost all his helicopters when the Lebanese Forces, as a diversion, besieged the Adma base in Kisrawan; the outnumbered commandos held out until a deal let them leave armed (Hanf).

De Clerck and Malsagne date Sfeir's threat to late April or early May 1990: Christian soldiers in Aoun's army faced excommunication, and their dead the denial of Christian burial. They list it among the pressures that halted the army's advance on the Lebanese Forces headquarters at Karantina. The original speaks of a reiterated threat.

Hanf: Hrawi made unconditional acceptance of Taif the price of help when Geagea, after losing Ain al-Rummaneh, turned to the 'legal authorities' (Hrawi and the Hoss government) and passed four captured Fouga-Magister aircraft to General Lahoud's Qlayaat base. Aoun, low on fuel and ammunition, was supplied by the SSNP and Hobeika's pro-Syrian militia (Hanf); de Clerck and Malsagne also name Frangieh and Jumblatt.

Aoun answered Ibrahimi's offer of a national unity cabinet including himself and Geagea with conditions of his own: a stronger president, no appointed deputies, and the militias dissolved and elections held before the Taif amendments were ratified. Hanf counts at least four meetings between the two in summer 1990; Ibrahimi confessed he could not tell what Aoun wanted.

Sources disagree on the dates. Hanf dates the parliamentary vote (48 for, 1 against, 2 abstentions out of 51 deputies) to 26 August 1990 and its promulgation by President Hrawi to 21 September 1990. De Clerck and Malsagne, and Picard, give 21 September as the date the constitutional law was adopted. Haugbolle says parliament approved the Taif Agreement in August 1990. Traboulsi's postscript gives '21 September' but places it in 1991, probably by mistake. The vote started the Taif timetable: six months to disband the militias, and two years before Syrian troops withdrew to the Bekaa. Aoun called it a comedy, arguing that parliament had been dissolved.

Hanf notes the blockade had little support even outside the enclave, as civilians rather than Aoun's soldiers bore it. On 28 September 1990, he records, Lahoud's troops tightened it by taking every checkpoint around Aoun's area; Aoun's followers protested daily there and at Baabda.

Hanf gives 13 dead and 90 wounded. The candle-carrying marchers were heading for the front between Ashrafieh and the eastern suburbs, held by Lebanese Army troops and Lebanese Forces militiamen alike.

Syrian jets flew low over Baabda on 11 and 12 October 1990, with no Israeli reaction. On the 11th Hrawi, on a cabinet decision, had asked Assad in writing for the Syrian military support Taif provided for the Lebanese Army (Hanf).

At about 7 a.m. on 13 October 1990 Syrian aircraft started bombing Baabda, and Syrian and Lebanese armour moved in from West Beirut and the mountains. Some two and a half hours later Aoun went to the French embassy; with Ambassador René Ala mediating, and at Hrawi's demand, he told his troops over the radio to obey General Lahoud. Within about eight hours the fighting had ended. Tolls vary: over 200 dead in a single morning (de Clerck and Malsagne); some 400 Syrian soldiers dead (Hanf); 160 Syrian soldiers dead at Dahr el-Wahash alone, by Syrian figures (Fisk); and an initial government figure of 36 dead (Fisk). Picard's chronology places the Syrian attack on 12 October.

Mitterrand called asylum for Aoun 'a matter of honour' and France granted it, but Beirut refused to let him go; he stayed in the French embassy until taken to France on 29 August 1991.

De Clerck and Malsagne count the murder of Dany Chamoun, his wife and two of their children as the last act of violence between Christian factions. The place is given as Baabda (Confluences) or 'his east Beirut home' (Fisk). Chamoun had backed Aoun, though critically, and was opposed to Syria's presence. Hanf notes that many blamed Syria, but judges that killing a whole family suggests a militia vendetta; Fisk likens it to the Phalangists' earlier killing of Tony Frangieh, his wife and baby. Samir Geagea was later tried for the murder (Picard).