Background
After months of skirmishes, the Syrian Army and Lebanese militias then aligned with Damascus (mainly the Progressive Socialist Party and the Amal movement) backed up by Lebanese Forces artillery stormed the holdout of the military government of East Beirut, led by Gen. Michel Aoun, who had declared a "War of Liberation" against Syria earlier during the year, and had just escaped a mysterious assassination attempt the previous day. Aoun's forces were headquartered around the Presidential Palace in Ba'bda, Beirut. The Aounist areas were quickly overrun.
While the main confrontation was clearly a military one, the attackers afterwards in many instances turned to plundering, and tens of Aounist army soldiers and civilians were summarily executed by Syrian forces or the militias, as they cemented their hold on the capital.
The attack on the Aoun government marks the end of the Lebanese Civil War. Syria would dominate the political life of the country for the following 15 years, under the auspices of the Taif Agreement.
Read more about this topic: October 13 Massacre
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