BEIRUT -- The Daily Star did not need to send a reporter to the front line to cover the first salvos of the 15-year civil war that nearly broke Lebanon's back. The newspaper's offices were already there.
The nation's only English-language daily stood its ground on the Green Line, an infamous three-block-wide band of no man's land and battered buildings that stretched 5 km from the Mediterranean Sea and split the capital into Muslim west and Christian east Beirut.
Although the offices were nestled in the middle block and remained intact, cushioned from blows by the bullet- and mortar-riddled blocks on either side, they became hazardous to reach.