Lebanon and Syria: Peering into the abyss

In the aftermath of the final presidential debate, I chose to read about some foreign policy issues discussed.  This article is about how the civil war in Syria is slowly stretching into neighboring Lebanon.  I absolutely loved the lead on this piece.  It dragged the reader into the story by describing a car bomb that killed a senior police officer.  The author used powerful words like gutted and murdered to create an exciting, violent scene.  However, the author also introduced some historical background and some current info. into their lead.  Because this piece is from a magazine I noticed that there are less quotes.  Is this typical for a news magazine?