How an investigation led to a gun battle in Lebanon

IT WAS SUPPOSEDLF to be a speech to celebrate a Muslim holiday, yet Hassan Nasrallah devoted a striking amount of it to a Christian politician, Samir Geagea. There was not much cause for celebration anyway. The leader of Hizbullah, a Shia political party-cum-militia, was speaking on October 18th, four days after an hours-long gun battle in Beirut that killed seven people. It was the worst street violence in Lebanon’s capital since 2008. Mr Nasrallah blames Mr Geagea.In Mr Nasrallah’s telling, the Lebanese Forces (), the right-wing Christian party led by Mr Geagea, was trying to spark a civil war. Hizbullah, he added, has 100,000 fighters trained for battle, a claim that is impossible to verify but probably exaggerated. Still, the warning was clear. “Don’t miscalculate,” Mr Nasrallah told his rival. “Be wise and behave.”