UPDATE: Hitchens is still in Beirut and went ahead with a scheduled lecture entitled "Who are the revolutionaries in today's Middle East?" at American University in Beirut on Wednesday night, Huffington Post has learned.

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The assault on Christopher Hitchens' body continues - he's been waterboarded, body-waxed and suffered through countless hangovers.

In the latest incident, Hitchens sustained gashed knuckles and bruises in a vicious street brawl with shoe-shopping thugs during a Valentine's Day night out on the streets of Beirut.

Hitchens, the chain-smoking, hard-drinking, intellectually ambitious Vanity Fair columnist, was beat up during the altercation, according to several blogs.

Hitchens was apparently visiting Beirut at the invitation of the Hariri-Saudi group, affiliated with the assassinated Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, when he defaced a poster for the Syrian Social Nationalist party and was assaulted by some members of the SSNP who happened to be walking by, according to the Angry Arab News Service.

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