In the garden of a weathered Wilhelminian style villa in the south of Beirut, Lokman Slim's friends and relatives sit on red plastic chairs, smoke cigarettes and drink coffee from small paper cups. Again and again visitors, dressed entirely in black, come to express their condolences. Their faces are full of sadness and shock. "The loss is indescribable," says Mustafa Yamouth, an old companion who runs a cultural center and has worked with Slim for years. He takes off his mask and lights a cigarette, the third within a very short time. "It's an attack on us all." Since the well-known Lebanese activist Slim was found dead in the Hezbollah-controlled south of the country, Beirut has been in a panic. Some fear a return to the times when assassinations were commonplace - and a second civil war loomed.