I heard from another friend, who, um, knows a little something about what real fighting is like, and he says that although "thugs" have been shooting outside his apartment for five hours, he doesn't have any idea what they're shooting at, since (a) it's not a mixed neighborhood and (b) nobody's shooting back at them.
He says he's hearing occasional RPGs and even these. Pretty heavy weaponry for what seems to be mostly just a bunch of guys showing off their new guns.
He also says it seems more amateurish than military, which makes it more dangerous.
The blogger who calls himself Charles Malik says Amal and Future Movement militias are controlling different sections of the neighborhood where I usually stay when I'm there. (It's mostly a Sunni, Future Movement neighborhood, but there's a section near the corniche that for many years has been populated by supporters of Amal, one of the Shi'ite parties with a rather notorious reputation during the civil war.)
