99,000 lines only according to Fisk

parts taken from here

"When I turned up there yesterday morning, I joined a queue for manouche – Lebanon's hot cheese breakfast sandwiches – at Eyman's bakery in Watwat Street. I patiently waited behind four black-hooded gunmen from Hizbollah's allied (but highly venal) Amal movement only to find uniformed Lebanese soldiers representing the government patiently queuing at the next window. Law and disorder, it seems, both have to eat."

(he should check what Amal are doing elsewhere in insulting the women of the neighborhood)

"Marwan Hamade, Mr Siniora's Telecommunications Minister – and victim of an attempted assassination in 2004 – admitted he had turned a blind eye to Hizbollah's underground phone system but could no longer when he realised that Hizbollah now maintains 99,000 numbered lines."

"No, this is not a civil war. Nor is it a coup d'etat, though it meets some of the criteria. It is part of the war against America in the Middle East. "

Well they both have their sponsors ...but when two coalitions having their supporters (of the same national identity) shooting each other, then yes it is a civil war, Mr. Fisk. All civil wars in the past were not proxy wars, but a problem with the system, and the empowerment of sect. leaders. What is happening here is not just US Proxy Wars versus Iran's Proxy wars.

When the Israelis invaded Lebanon in support for their allies the Lebanese Forces and demolished the Syrian Army and the PLO (who the latter was supported by the Lebanese National Movement), the era of 1982 - 1985 remained to be called a civil war depsite the presence of a proxy war whereby we don't know how much each coalition is sucked in. I agree with a certain US diplomat that Lebanon is a cyclone that sucked everyone else into it.