Was Christopher Hitchens Involved in a Street Brawl in Beirut?

Christopher Hitchens had a run-in with Syrian Social Nationalist Party thugs on the streets of Beirut after he defaced a political propaganda poster.

This was first reported on a couple of blogs, and then by Forbes:

But later that night, three of our “scoop” brigade–Jonathan Foreman, Michael Totten and Christopher Hitchens–got involved in a street brawl with some thugs of a Syria-loving skinhead party called the SNPN after Hitchens rather gallantly insulted their swastika flag. On our way to a meeting with Minister of State Nassib Lahoud, Hitchens showed me the gashed knuckles and bruises suffered during the punch up.