All the Beirut news.

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The Arab League negotiated between pro-government and opposition forces to create a 6-point plan:

1) Things must return to what they were before May 5, 2008: the government must respond to the Army Command statement and hand the two decisions over to the army; All arms must be withdrawn from the streets and all roads, the Rafik Hariri International Airport and the Beirut Seaport reopened; and the Lebanese army must take charge of national security and civil peace.

1) It seems like Hezbollah and the opposition are backing down. Hezbollah achieved its goal, and is currently willing to negotiate. Will they bully the government using a threat of violence, again? Most definitely.

Hezbollah stole computer hard drives and organizational papers from many Future Movement offices. An SSNP source claims, "Hezbollah now has the names, addresses, and phone numbers of many members of the Future Movement and other supporters. This information will be used against Future supporters soon." I also heard corroborating information from a European diplomat.

A Future Movement friend recently had an SSNP friend recount his evening events for him: "You left Sakiet Jinzeer from Pain d'Or at 4pm with a friend. You went to Jal ad Dib, and then to Sassine. You went to a pub in Hamra and met with another person. You arrived at home at 11pm. They know who you are."

There are divisions between Hezbollah, Amal, and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. Sources from each political group told me about their anger with the others.

Hezbollah often likes to blame all of their evils on others, normally Amal. They love to claim that Amal members are thieves and brigands who would steal from their own mothers. They become emotional explaining the divisions between Amal and Hezbollah, saying that there is still great enmity between the two groups. Yet, every time something major happens in Lebanon there is Hezbollah walking hand in hand with Amal.

Obviously, I'm angry about Hezbollah, Amal, and the SSNP's invasion of Beirut. They continue to claim that their armed attack is "civil disobedience." Obviously, they are not familiar with satyagraha and Dr. King.

However, I'm in a quandary regarding my fellow residents of Beirut.

1) Should we go back to our normal lives and not allow the brigands to stop us from doing what we choose? This would be a true act of non-violent civil disobedience in the face of menacing threats.

2) Should we keep business closed and huddle in our homes to prevent from giving an excuse to the brigands to become more violent and to save ourselves?

The Christian areas between Beirut's Christian district of Ashrafieh and the northern Christian Lebanese city of Batroun are stable and relatively unaffected by the current events elsewhere in the country.

According to friends in the Chouf, the atmosphere is tense. There are still more reports coming out of the Chouf as to what happened and is happening. One of the main reasons why very little has been reported on this battle is because Hezbollah did not allow film crews into the area. Al-Arabiya and the BBC were the only networks covering the conflict, and both did so from behind Druze lines.

Beirut is dead.

At11pm, Gemmayze, one of Beirut's central night neighborhoods, closed up shop.

The late night places in Hamra, like De Prague, Barometre, Regusto (formerly, Chez Andre) and Evergreen, closed as well.

This is not the Beirut I know.

Supposedly, 300 Druze shuyukh (sheikhs) supported the Druze community in the regions around Choueifat and Aley.

Now, I hear reports that Hezbollah intelligence is searching the region for military age males. According to a friend from Deir Qoubel, many of these men, fathers and providers for their families, have fled to guarantee their safety.

While Hariri spoke, Amal's NBN TV broadcast images of dead bodies from the Halba battles. It appears that Lebanese Sunni committed this horrific crime and must be held responsible for their actions. However there is no evidence that Saad Hariri ordered the attack. Whereas Hezbollah, Amal, and SSNP leadership is definitely responsible for the terrorism, chaos, deaths, and murders that took place in Beirut. They must be held responsible for their crimes, and must re-pay the Lebanese people, businesses, and government for the harm and destruction they caused.

Bobby Worth of the New York Times covers the Chouf war.

Future TV is back on air. Future CEO Nadim al Munla is on, and Minister of Information Ghazi Aridi is calling in, at the moment.

A technician is showing the torn and cut Future TV cables and where equipment was broken and stolen.

Future Movement leader Saad Hariri is now giving a speech. He just called for a moment of silence. He's speaking from Koreitem.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad has been giving a speeching, which is still going on.


Tayyar.org forums has a report on the massacre that occured in Halba in north Lebanon. According to the report, Future Movement members massacred members of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

Much of the information on television is propaganda or psy-ops.

Hezbollah uses it's media network, just like it's telephone network, for militant purposes. They feel little interest in uncovering the truth. Instead, they announce entirely inaccurate and false information to destroy the morale of their opponents.

Hezbollah also prevents other media outlets from reporting from areas they control, like al-Arabiya, which they have not only imprisoned, but banned from cable providers in their areas.

The Druze community in the Chouf utterly defeated Hezbollah's attack.

On the very first night of Chouf combat, the Druze community in Aley armed with hunting rifles, kalashnikovs, and a few RPGs killed approxiamately 21 Hezbollah soldiers and captured two others. In a later conflict, Iranian "observers" were captured in Aley, according to a local source.

One scholar and educator from the Druze community explains, "Every man, young and old, came out to defend Aley. We only had the weapons in our houses. Some older men had civil war era weapons, like RPGs, but there were not many of them. I had no idea my community would be so spirited in its own defense.... Druze defend Druze. We were not fighting for our own lives, but the continuation our community."

In 2005, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said that she understood the dynamic in Lebanon and, as such, the United States would not call for the immediate disarmament of Hezbollah. Instead, the United States would work to strengthen Lebanese government institutions.

The Internal Security Forces received brand new equipment, and many officers were trained in the United States.

The Lebanese Army has a long-standing relationship with the US military: generals Michel Aoun, Emile Lahoud, and Michel Sleiman have all received training in the United States. Even during the Syrian occupation, the United States was the number one provider of military assistance to Lebanon.

Whenever Hezbollah and Israel clash, the residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley flee those regions, and seek refuge in Beirut and the Chouf mountains. The vast majority of these refugees are Shia.

Within the last year, NOW Lebanon ran a story on Lebanese Shia fears that other Lebanese communities will not take them in after the destruction and undemocratic behavior of Hezbollah's 2006 war and the heightening tensions over the Lebanese government, cabinet, and presidency. In 2006, many Shia were angry with the less-than-hospitable, but good enough reception they received. The increased political tensions after the war made them fear reprisals during the next conflict, which led many Shia with money to buy property in Syria.

Who is the fixer for the LA Times in Beirut? Why is the LA Times feeding into the anti-government, pro-Hezbollah propaganda machine?

This story is a lame attempt to make it seem like the Sunni pro-government Future Movement had a militia fighting against Hezbollah. Despite what is written at the beginning of the article, the author somewhat comes clean about what she insinuates by noting towards the end that Sunni security for leader Saad Hariri were not even allowed to have guns.