Most of the pictures are of the Hezbollah controlled areas of south Beirut. On entering the densely-packed Shi'a area one is greeted by Lebanese military tanks and pictures of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Hezbollah movement, Pictures of him (the bearded man wearing glasses), the founder of Hezbollah, Imam Musa Sadr (with a long white beard), and Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini are to be seen hanging from the lampposts of the center divider of the street. Along with them are pictures of martyrs--young men who have given their lives as suicide bombers in attacks on Israel and the United States.

The pictures also show Lebanese military patrolling the central market of the area, as if to assert their authority--which by all accounts is remarkably thin in this region.

One can also see the yellow Hezbollah flags showing a fist clutching onto a rifle, and young men in yellow shirts going from car to car in the center of the street soliciting money to help the Hezbollah cause.

The final pictures are of a new mosque in the center of Beirut that will be the final resting place of the assassinated Prime Minister Hariri, whose temporary tomb is in a tent nearby. A new Maronite (or perhaps Armenian) church is also being constructed nearby.

So Beirut is rebuilding, as the pictures of the modern Intercontinental Hotel--and the ubiquitous McDonald's hamburger shops--indicate. Let us hope that the violence that erupted between Israel and Hezbollah in the days immediately after these pictures were taken will not dismantle Lebanon's fragile political structure and send the nation back into an implacable civil war.

-- Mark Juergensmeyer