By the first half of 1983, the influence of Hezbollah was seeping from the Beqaa Valley into the slums of Beirut—waves of Shia refugees fleeing the south had settled at the bottom of the city, close to the airport, layers of families and clans, villagers converging in neighborhoods. Where you landed determined under whose influence you fell: the more moderate Amal or the Islamist Hezbollah; temperate clerics or firebrand conservative ones.
