evidence: I have been to the Lebanese village of al-Qasr on the border with Syria at the invitation of members of the Ja’afar clan. The atmosphere in the area is generally quiet and daily life mostly proceeds as normal. Some tents housing Syrian refugees can be found, while Syrians and Lebanese traverse both sides of the border on a daily basis. Though Syrians coming to Lebanon now officially require a visa, some leeway is granted in this area: for instance, some Syrians come to al-Qasr to sell bread at lower prices than purchased from Lebanese vendors. Some residents of al-Qasr might go to Syria for the day to buy food products for the similar reason of lower prices. [...] In al-Qasr though, a key matter of concern in the area stems from problems between the Lebanese state and the Ja’afar family. These problems have arisen on account of the killing of a young man called Hadi Ja’afar at a checkpoint being run by members of the Lebanese army intelligence in September 2016. The exact reason for the killing is not clear, but the incident prompted Hadi’s father al-Hajj Muhammad Ja’afar, a prominent member of the Ja’afar clan and wealthy businessman from al-Qasr, to take revenge on the perpetrator by organizing his killing with his own personal hit squad in the Sayyida Zainab area of Damascus. Owing to the problems that have arisen with the Lebanese state through this cycle of killing and revenge, members of the Ja’afar family, armed with rifles, now conduct night patrols in case of any attack by enemies from the Lebanese army.