Yasser Arafat soon found himself engaged in a fratricidal fight for control of the PLO - and for his life. In July 1983, fighting broke out in Lebanon between pro- and anti-Arafat forces. In a daring air and sea journey from his new headquarters in Tunisia, Arafat managed to slip into Lebanon in disguise to join his fighters. The Syrian-backed Amal militia and anti-Arafat factions besieged the Palestinian camps in Beirut and southern Lebanon in an on-and-off onslaught that would last three years and become known as the Camps War.