Feb. 6, 1984: Predominantly Shiite Muslim militias seize control of West Beirut.
June 10, 1985: The Israeli army finishes withdrawing out of most of Lebanon, but keeps an occupation zone along the Lebanon-Israeli border and calls it its “security zone.” The zone is patrolled by the South Lebanon Army and Israeli soldiers.
June 16, 1985: Hezbollah militants hijack a TWA flight to Beirut, demanding the release of Shiite prisoners in Israeli jails. Militants murder U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem. The passengers were not freed until two weeks later. Israel, over a period of weeks following the resolution of the hijacking, relased some 700 prisoners, insisting the release was not related to the hijacking.
June 1, 1987: Lebanese Prime Minister Rashid Karami, a Sunni Muslim, is assassinated when a bomb explodes in his helicopter. He is replaced by Selim el Hoss.
September 22, 1988: The presidency of Amin Gemayel ends without a successor. Lebanon operates under two rival governments—a military government led by renegade general Michel Aoun, and a civil government headed by Selim el Hoss, a Sunni Muslim.
March 14, 1989: Gen. Michel Aoun declares a “war of Liberation” against Syrian occupation. The war triggers a devastating final round to the Lebanese civil war as Christian factions battle it out.
September 22, 1989: The Arab League brokers a cease-fire. Lebanese and Arab leaders meet in Taif, Saudi Arabia, under the leadership of Lebanese Sunni leader Rafik Hariri. The Taif agreement effectively lays the groundwork for an end to the war by reapportioning power in Lebanon. Christians lose their majority in Parliament, settling for a 50-50 split, though the president is to remains a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of Parliament a Shiite Muslim.
November 22, 1989: President Elect René Muawad, believed to have been a reunification candidate, is assassinated. He is replaced by Elias Harawi. Gen. Emile Lahoud is named to replace Gen. Michel Aoun commander of the Lebanese army.
October 13, 1990: Syrian forces are given a green light by France and the United States to storm Michel Aoun’s presidential palace once Syria joins the American coalition against Saddam Hussein in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
October 13, 1990: Michel Aoun takes refuge in the French Embassy, then chooses exile in Paris (he was to return as a Hezbollah ally in 2005). October 13, 1990, marks the official end of the Lebanese civil war. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people, most of them civilian, are believed to have perished in the war.
