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The Lebanese Arab Army – LAA (Arabic: جيش لبنان العربي transliteration Jayish Lubnan al-Arabi), also known variously as the Arab Army of Lebanon (AAL) and Arab Lebanese Army or Armée arabe du Liban (AAL) in French, was a predominantly Muslim splinter faction of the Lebanese Army that came to play a key role in the 1975–77 phase of the Lebanese Civil War.
Emblem
Upon its creation in January 1976, the LAA adopted as emblem a badge featuring an eagle with folded wings and a Lebanese Cedar tree at the centre, holding a scroll on its claws below, which portrayed the Militant group's ideology. The eagle itself symbolised Pan-Arabism, whilst the Cedar tree represented Lebanon, and the trunk of the tree featured "Lebanon" written in Arabic Calligraphy. In the scroll at the bottom was depicted a quote in Arabic that translates as "My Arabism will prevail."
The motto "Lebanese Arab Army" written in Arabic script was often hastily painted or sprayed by LAA troops on the hull and turret of their armoured cars and tanks, and on the body of their transport vehicles.[2][3][4][5][6]
Headquartered at Hasbaya Barracks in the Beqaa Valley,[28] the LAA numbered at its peak some 4,400 uniformed regulars (though other sources list a total of just 2,000).[29][30] The confessional identity of the soldiers was mostly Muslim, consisting of Shia Muslims from Southern Lebanon and Baalbek-Hermel, Sunni Muslims from the North, and Druzes from the Chouf.[31] This total later included a small number of Syrian military officers sympathetic to the cause of the LNM-PLO alliance, who had defected from Syrian Arab Deterrent Force (ADF) units stationed in Lebanon after June 1976.[citation needed]
At the zenith of its power in March 1976, the LAA controlled three-quarters of all army barracks and posts in Lebanon,[32] comprising the Elias Abou Sleiman Barracks at Ablah, the Sheikh Abdullah Barracks at Baalbek, the Rashaya Citadel at Rashaya, the Hanna Ghostine Barracks at Aramayn, the Saïd el-Khateeb Barracks at Hammana, the Bahjat Ghanem Barracks and Youssef Halayel Barracks at Tripoli, the Mohamed Zogheib Barracks at Sidon, and the Adloun and Benoit Barakat Barracks at Tyre.[33] At West Beirut, LAA troops controlled the Emil Helou Barracks, the Emir Bachir Barracks, the Emir Fakhreddine Barracks and the Henri Chihab Barracks, plus the Lebanese Army High Center for Military Sport in Haret Hreik, the Military Beach Club (French: Bain Militaire) in Ras Beirut and the Grand Serail.[34] Outside the Lebanese Capital, they also controlled the Kleyate Air Base in the northern Akkar District and the strategic Masnaa Border Crossing, situated on the Beirut-Aley-Damascus highway.[citation needed]
Being Pan-Arabist and radical secularist in orientation, the LAA received financial and material assistance from Fatah, Iraq and Libya.[35]
The LAA was also involved in January 1976 in the founding of the so-called People's Republic of Tyre (Arabic: جمهورية صور الشعبية| Jumhūriyya Ṣūr al-Ša'biyya), a short-lived autonomous Canton formed that same month at the port city of Tyre in Southern Lebanon.[36] With the active support of their LAA allies,[37] local Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) commanders took over the municipal government of the city, proclaimed the "People's Republic of Tyre", occupied the Lebanese Army's Adloun and Benoit Barakat Barracks, set up roadblocks and started collecting customs at the port.[38] However, the joint PLO-LAA "People's Republic of Tyre" government quickly lost the political support of the local population,[39][better source needed] mostly due to their "arbitrary and often brutal behavior".[40][better source needed]
List of LAA commanders
Lieutenant Ahmad al-Khatib (LAA commander-in-chief), Sunni
The LAA was equipped largely from stocks drawn from Lebanese Army and Internal Security Forces (ISF) reserves, with small-arms and vehicles taken directly from Army barracks and ISF police stations or channelled via the PLO.
Between January–March 1976, during the episode known as the 'War of the Barracks', Lt. Khatib and his rebellious soldiers managed to seize parts of the Beqaa and south Lebanon regions, and the northern port city of Tripoli, all areas with a clear Muslim majority. Lt. Khatib later claimed that his LAA faction controlled over 80 percent of Lebanon's territory and was just 10 km away from Jounieh, the unofficial 'Capital' of the Marounistan, an enclave created by the predominately Maronite ChristianLebanese Front militias in late 1976.[95]
On 15 March, the LAA units stationed in Beirut, the Beqaa, and northern Lebanon announced their support to Brigadier generalAziz El-Ahdab's failed coup attempt against President Suleiman Frangieh,[100][101][102] and in the course of the Battle of the Hotels later that month, the LAA provided armored and artillery support to the LNM-PLO joint forces and the Shi'iteAmal Movement militia during their all-out offensive against rightist Lebanese Front militias' positions in central Beirut. On 21 March, a major assault by special Palestinian PLO 'Commando' units using armored vehicles lent by the LAA and supported by the leftist-Muslim militias finally managed to dislodge the Christian-rightist Kataeb Regulatory Forces (KRF) from the Holiday Inn, in the Hotels district.[citation needed]
The Vanguards of the Lebanese Arab Army – VLAA (Arabic: طلائع الجيش العربي اللبناني | Talaei al-Jayish al-Arabi al-Lubnani) or Avant-gardes du Armée du Liban Arabe (AALA) in French, were a short-lived splinter faction of the LAA that began to be formed in February 1976 at Rayak Barracks by four Lebanese Army officers whom openly defied Lt. Khatib's leadership, Major (later, Colonel) Ibrahim Chahine, Major Fahim al-Hajj, Captain Jamil Al Sayyed,[113][114][115][116] and Mahmoud Matar.[117]
Headquartered at Rayak, close to the namesake Lebanese Air Forcemain Air Base, it was formally established as the VLAA on 3 June 1976 by Maj. Ibrahim Chahine,[118] and was created and sponsored by Syria in the hope of attracting both Muslim and Christian officers and enlisted men to act as a counterweight to the Palestinian-supported LAA.[119]
However, the new VLAA failed to attract a sizeable following and it was largely ineffective, since its 400 soldiers abstained from involving themselves in any of the major battles fought at the time in Beirut and Mount Lebanon. The only relevant actions carried out by the understrength Syrian-sponsored VLAA were the deployment of its soldiers to the town of Chtaura, Beqaa Valley, on 8 May 1976, in order to provide security to the newly elected President of Lebanon Elias Sarkis sworn-in ceremony held at the Chtaura Park Hotel,[120] followed in August that year by the deployment of some of its elements around the southern town of Nabatieh.[121]
Khatib's opposition to the June 1976 Syrian intervention in Lebanon, however, marked the beginning of the end for his LAA faction. Although the LAA did put a stiff resistance – notably at the Battle of Bhamdoun in the Chouf District between 13 and 17 October 1976, where they and their PLO, Al-Mourabitoun and Druze PLF allies inflicted heavy losses on the Syrian 3rd Armoured Division[123][124][125] – its numbers dwindled to a few hundred by the end of the year,[126] as many of Khatib's soldiers deserted after realizing that they had been played and used by the PLO. Chiefly among them was Maj. Ahmad Ma'amari, who had defected earlier in June with his troops of the LAA northern command and went over to the Syrians.[127] Several Druze soldiers also left the LAA to join the Popular Liberation Forces (PLF) militia.[128]
Increasingly military weakened and politically marginalized, the LAA suffered a final, shattering blow on 18 January 1977 when Syrian authorities invited the entire LAA leadership – Khatib, Ghotaymi, Manssour, Hamdan, and Addam – to a meeting with President Hafez al-Assad in Damascus.[129] However, upon crossing the border to Syria, they were immediately detained and secretly held in the infamous Mezzeh Military Prison. After spending between 18 and 24 months in prison, they were subsequently released on 8 October 1978 on the condition they resign their commissions and abstain from all political and military activity thereafter. Their political role at an end, both the LAA and VLAA were disbanded (the Syrian officers that had deserted to the LAA the previous year were arrested and shot), with their officers and enlisted men being simply returned without receiving any punishment or sanction to the First Brigade, which was re-incorporated into the official Lebanese Army order-of-battle in February 1977.[130]
In June that year, however, upon the insistence of the then Lebanese Defense and Foreign Affairs Minister Fouad Boutros, several ex-LAA officers were officially discharged from the Lebanese Army, notably Majors Ahmad Ma'amari and Ahmad Boutari, Lieutenants Ahmed Al-Khatib, Mouin Hatoum and Omar Abdallah, and 2nd Lieutenant Bassam al-Idilbi.[131] Like their colleagues of the AFL, they were never put on trial by a military court on charges of desertion and treason, gradually fading into obscurity afterwards.[citation needed]
^Hokayem, L'armée libanaise pendant la guerre: un instrument du pouvoir du président de la République (1975-1985) (2012), p. 30.
^Jureidini, McLaurin, and Price, Military operations in selected Lebanese built-up areas (1979), pp. 27-30.
^Zaloga, Tank battles of the Mid-East Wars (2003), p. 7.
^Naud, La Guerre Civile Libanaise - 1re partie: 1975-1978, pp. 11-13.
^El-Kazen, The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon (2000), p. 334.
^Hokayem, L'armée libanaise pendant la guerre: un instrument du pouvoir du président de la République (1975-1985) (2012), p. 32.
^Barak, The Lebanese Army – A National institution in a divided society (2009), p. 104.
^El-Kazen, The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon (2000), p. 334.
^Kechichian, The Lebanese Army: Capabilities and Challenges in the 1980s (1985), p. 21.
^Hokayem, L'armée libanaise pendant la guerre: un instrument du pouvoir du président de la République (1975-1985) (2012), pp. 40-41.
References
Afaf Sabeh McGowan, John Roberts, As'ad Abu Khalil, and Robert Scott Mason, Lebanon: a country study, area handbook series, Headquarters, Department of the Army (DA Pam 550–24), Washington D.C. 1989. – [1]
Alain Menargues, Les Secrets de la guerre du Liban: Du coup d'état de Béchir Gémayel aux massacres des camps palestiniens, Albin Michel, Paris 2004. ISBN978-2226121271 (in French)
Antoine J. Abraham, The Lebanon war, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996. ISBN0-275-95389-0
Beate Hamizrachi, The Emergence of South Lebanon Security Belt, Praeger Publishers Inc., New York 1984. ISBN978-0-275-92854-4
Chris McNab, 20th Century Military Uniforms (2nd ed.), Grange Books, Kent 2002. ISBN978-1-84013-476-6
Joseph A. Kechichian, The Lebanese Army: Capabilities and Challenges in the 1980s, Conflict Quarterly, Winter 1985.
Joseph Hokayem, L'armée libanaise pendant la guerre: un instrument du pouvoir du président de la République (1975-1985), Lulu.com, Beyrouth 2012. ISBN9781291036602, 1291036601 (in French) – [4]
Moustafa El-Assad, Civil Wars Volume 1: The Gun Trucks, Blue Steel books, Sidon 2008. ISBN9789953012568
Miguel "Mig" Jimenez & Jorge Lopez, M41 Bulldog au Liban, Steelmasters Magazine No. 69, June–July 2005, Histoire & Collections, Paris, pp. 18–22. ISSN1962-4654 (in French)
Naomi Joy Weinberger, Syrian Intervention in Lebanon: The 1975-76 Civil War, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1986. ISBN978-0195040104, 0195040104
N.R. Jenzen-Jones & Damien Spleeters, Identifying & Tracing the FN Herstal FAL Rifle: Documenting signs of diversion in Syria and beyond, Armament Research Services Pty. Ltd., Australia, August 2015. ISBN978-0-9924624-6-8 – [5]
Oren Barak, The Lebanese Army – A National institution in a divided society, State University of New York Press, Albany 2009. ISBN978-0-7914-9345-8 – [6]
Paul Jureidini, R. D. McLaurin, and James Price, Military operations in selected Lebanese built-up areas, 1975-1978, Aberdeen, MD: U.S. Army Human Engineering Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Technical Memorandum 11–79, June 1979.
Philipe Naud, La Guerre Civile Libanaise - 1re partie: 1975-1978, Steelmasters Magazine No. 113, August–September 2012, Histoire & Collections, Paris, pp. 8–16. ISSN1962-4654 (in French)
Rex Brynen, Sanctuary and Survival: the PLO in Lebanon, Boulder: Westview Press, Oxford 1990. ISBN0 86187 123 5 – [7]
Samer Kassis, 30 Years of Military Vehicles in Lebanon, Beirut: Elite Group, 2003. ISBN9953-0-0705-5
Samer Kassis, Véhicules Militaires au Liban/Military Vehicles in Lebanon 1975-1981, Trebia Publishing, Chyah 2012. ISBN978-9953-0-2372-4
Samir Makdisi and Richard Sadaka, The Lebanese Civil War, 1975-1990, American University of Beirut, Institute of Financial Economics, Lecture and Working Paper Series (2003 No.3), pp. 1–53. – [9]
Steven J. Zaloga, Armour of the Middle East Wars 1948-78, Vanguard series 19, Osprey Publishing Ltd, London 1981. ISBN0 85045 388 7
Steven J. Zaloga, Tank battles of the Mid-East Wars (2): The wars of 1973 to the present, Concord Publications, Hong Kong 2003. ISBN962-361-613-9 – [10]
Simon Dunstan, Panhard Armoured Car: 1961 Onwards (AML 60, AML 90, Eland), Enthusiasts' Manual, Haynes Publishing UK, Somerset 2019. ISBN978-1-78521-194-2
Thomas Collelo (ed.), Lebanon: a country study, Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, Headquarters, Department of the Army (DA Pam 550–24), Washington D.C., December 1987 (Third edition 1989). – [11]
Tom Cooper & Sergio Santana, Lebanese Civil War Volume 1: Palestinian diaspora, Syrian and Israeli interventions, 1970-1978, Middle East@War No. 21, Helion & Company Limited, Solihull UK 2019. ISBN978-1-915070-21-0
Tony Badran (Barry Rubin ed.), Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis, Palgrave Macmillan, London 2010. ISBN978-0-230-62306-4
Ludovic Fortin, T17E1 Staghound Armored Car – Le char sur roues, Trucks & Tracks Magazine No. 5, December 2007–January 2008, Caraktère, Marseille, pp. 48–67. ISSN1957-4193 (in French)
Wade R. Goria, Sovereignty and Leadership in Lebanon, 1943–76, Ithaca Press, London 1985. ISBN978-0863720314
Who's Who in Lebanon 2007–2008, Publitec Publications & De Gruyter Saur, Beirut / Munich 2007. ISBN978-3-598-07734-0
Zachary Sex & Bassel Abi-Chahine, Modern Conflicts 2 – The Lebanese Civil War, From 1975 to 1991 and Beyond, Modern Conflicts Profile Guide Volume II, AK Interactive, 2021. EAN8435568306073
Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, Simon and Schuster, New York 1985. ISBN978-0671602161 – [12]
Further reading
Denise Ammoun, Histoire du Liban contemporain: Tome 2 1943-1990, Éditions Fayard, Paris 2005. ISBN978-2-213-61521-9 (in French) – [13]
Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon: Second Edition, Pluto Press, London 2012. ISBN978-0745332741
Jean Sarkis, Histoire de la guerre du Liban, Presses Universitaires de France - PUF, Paris 1993. ISBN978-2-13-045801-2 (in French)
Samir Kassir, La Guerre du Liban: De la dissension nationale au conflit régional, Éditions Karthala/CERMOC, Paris 1994. ISBN978-2865374991 (in French)
Marius Deeb, The Lebanese Civil War, Praeger Publishers Inc., New York 1980. ISBN978-0030397011
William W. Harris, Faces of Lebanon: Sects, Wars, and Global Extensions, Princeton Series on the Middle East, Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton 1997. ISBN978-1558761155, 1-55876-115-2