People's Liberation Army (Lebanon)

The PLA official emblem consisted of a red flag with a white disc on the centre, featuring a crossed dip pen and pickaxe superimposed on an AK-47 Assault rifle in the middle standing upwards, all in silver, inserted on a golden circular wreath, the latter consisting of two interlocking branches and leaves of the bay laurel and an unspecified plant.

• 
  People's Liberation Army Flag
• 
  Anti-Aircraft Corps
• 
  Armored Corps
• 
  Engineering and Support Regiment
• 
  Artillery Corps
• 
  Security Police Corps
• 
  People's Liberation Army 1976 Flag Version - Tanukh Brigade
• 
  Popular Liberation Forces
• 
  Signal Corps
• 
  Military School
• 
  War of 1958 Veterans' association

Although the PSP was officially a secular political party, its military wing was not only well-organized, but also one of the largest sectarian militias in Lebanon. It was first founded unofficially by the Party's president Kamal Jumblatt at the height of the 1958 civil war with a strength of about 1,000–2,000 militiamen, which fought alongside the Pan-Arab/leftist anti-government forces against the Lebanese Army, and the pro-government conservative Christian and Muslim militias in Beirut and the Chouf District.

Disbanded upon the conclusion of the war, the PSP was left without an official paramilitary branch until early 1975, when – despite Kamal Jumblatt's initial reluctance to engage in paramilitarism – the Party's leadership board decided to quietly raise a new militia force with the help of the Palestine Liberation Organization or PLO (mainly from Fatah, PFLP and DPFLP) in response to the Christian rightist Parties' own clandestine military build-up.[1] Initial progress was slow, however, since the PSP was only able to gather a few hundred militiamen and because of the secrecy surrounding the formation of its militia, it even lacked an official title. Under Kamal Jumblatt's leadership, the PSP was a major element in the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) alliance, which supported the recognition of Lebanon's Arab identity and sympathised with the Palestinians. When the Lebanese Civil War broke out in April 1975, as a member of the LNM the PSP was an active founder of the movement's military wing, the Joint Forces (LNM-JF).

In 1976, following an open appeal by Kamal Jumblatt urging Lebanese Muslim youths to join the LNM-JF militias, the PSP's own military wing was expanded and re-organized, being officially established on August 17 of that year as the People's Liberation Army.[2] By early 1977, the PLA mustered 2,500–3,000 lightly-armed fighters drawn from the Druze and Shia Muslim communities of the Chouf.[3][4][5][6] Other sources however, place its numbers as high as 5,000.[7][8]

In 1975–77 the PLA was a predominantly infantry force, loosely organized into companies or battalions provided with light weapons drawn from PLO stocks or pilfered from LAF and ISF barracks. After suffering casualties during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon of June 1982, the PLA was quietly re-organized that year by Walid Jumblatt, who turned it into a disciplined fighting force provided with Soviet-made armoured vehicles, field guns, Howitzers and MBRLs.

The PLA was structured along conventional lines, comprising several branches of service and support units. The "Commando" and Infantry formations were organized into independent Battalions or Brigades (such as the Tanukh Brigade), whilst specialized technical services included:

• the Armored Corps
• the Artillery Corps
• the Anti-Aircraft Corps
• the Signal Corps
• the Engineering and Support Regiment
• the Security Police Corps (Military Police)
• the Popular Liberation Forces (PLF)
• the War of 1958 Veterans' association

Headquartered at the Druze town of Baakline in the Chouf, the PSP militia by 1983 aligned 16,000–17,000 troops, consisting of 5,000–6,000 uniformed regulars backed by 12,000 male and female reservists[9] staffed by a qualified, Libyan- and Soviet-trained Officer corps; other Druze officer cadets received their instruction in a PSP-run Military School set up at the town of Debbiyeh, also in the Chouf.[10] The PLA absorbed many Druze soldiers which had served with the Lebanese Arab Army (LAA) upon its forceful disbandement in 1977-78,[11] being subsequently enlarged in the wake of the Mountain War with the inclusion of a number of Druze officers, NCOs and enlisted men from the Lebanese Army's Fourth Brigade after its disintegration in February 1984.[12][13] During that conflict, the PLA also received the active support of the 1,800 men-strong, primarily Druze Eleventh Brigade commanded by Colonel Amin Qadi, stationed at Hammana and Beiteddine.[14][15][16][17] Although its membership and command structure was predominantly Druze, the PLA did included a number of Sunnis and Shi'ites in their ranks; most Druze recruits continued to come from the Mountain and, until the return of the Syrian Army in 1987, from the Sanayeh (Kantari) and the seafront quarters of West Beirut.[8]

• Kamal Jumblatt (1975–1977)
• Walid Jumblatt (1977–1990)

Besides Palestinian and Syrian backing, the collapse of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and Internal Security Forces (ISF) in January 1976 allowed the PSP/PLA to seize some weapons and vehicles from their barracks and police stations, though they received further military assistance from Libya, Iraq, East Germany, and the USSR.[20] Additional weaponry, vehicles and other, non-lethal military equipments were procured in the international black market.

The stronghold of the PSP/PLA laid in the Jabal Barouk area within the Chouf, which they turned into a semi-autonomous canton in the early 1980s, known unofficially as the 'Druze Mountain' (Arabic: Jabal al-Duruz). Centred at the Druze town of Baakline – the PSP's political and military HQ – the canton comprised the Chouf District proper, including the historic towns of Moukhtara (the Jumblatt family's feudal seat near Beiteddine), Deir al-Qamar, Aley and Bhamdoun, and the Iqlim al-Kharrub coastal enclave south of Beirut, which was added to the canton in March 1984. At west Beirut, the PLA controlled since May 1985 the Druze-populated Karakol quarter, parts of the Hamra district and a large portion of Rue Watta el-Msaytbi, the latter a small Druze street that housed the PSP's main political offices in the capital city.

From the Israeli withdrawal from the Chouf in 1983 to the end of the civil war in 1990, the PSP ran a highly effective and well-organized civil service, the "Civilian Administration of the Mountain" (CAM or CAOM), in the areas under its control. The CAM was set up on 1 October 1983 at Beiteddine, headed by an eight-man supreme council that included a central committee and a general congress.[51] Its own 23 bureaus staffed by 3,000 public employees provided everything from education to medical care and also employed 2,000 seasonal workers in agricultural and industrial projects in the Chouf.[8]

To finance the administration, a Druze-run Holding, the COGECO group, was made responsible for running illegal activities at the clandestine ports of Khalde and Jieh in the Iqlim al-Kharrub coastal enclave, which included the importation of fuel from Iran, drug-trafficking and gambling by a network of PSP-run Hotels and Casinos. Additional revenues were generated by leaving tolls on the transit trade of agricultural products and other goods at a number of in-land PLA road checkpoints, whilst the expatriated Druze community in the United States provided financial support.

Beiteddine was also the home of the PSP/PLA media services, responsible for editing its official newspaper, "The News" (Arabic: Al-Anba'a) and operated since February 1984 their own radio station, the "Voice of the Mountain" (Arabic: Iza'at Sawt al-Djabal) or "La Voix de la Montagne" in French.[52][53][54]

Historically, the Druze in Lebanon managed to maintain for centuries a small, hardy community in the Chouf Mountains overlooking Beirut surrounded by a sea of potential enemies, both Christian and Muslim, and they have a reputation of being savage fighters known for their tenacious battle spirit. Their esprit de corps and brutal methods often convinced their opponents to flee, whilst those who decided to stay and fight never lived to tell the tale.[55] However, the Lebanese Druze have also been amiable to whoever controls the Chouf region at any given time, and they were pragmatic with their dealings with foreign powers such as the Israelis, Americans and Syrians.[56]

Long-standing enemies since the 1860s, the Druze have always been at odds with the Maronites, and acts of barbarism on both sides have bedevilled their ability to co-exist for centuries past. On 16 March 1977, the PSP leader Kamal Jumblatt was ambushed and killed in his car near Baakline in the Chouf by unidentified gunmen (allegedly, fighters from the pro-Syrian faction of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, acting in collusion with the Syrian military commander of the Mount Lebanon region, Colonel Ibrahim Houeijy);[57][58][59][60][61] believing that the perpetrators were members of the predominately Christian Phalangist Kataeb Regulatory Forces (KRF) or Tigers Militias, PLA militiamen extracted swift retribution on the local Maronite population living in the intermixed towns and villages around Baakline. Despite the hasty dispatch on March 17 of 4,000 Syrian Army troops from the Arab Deterrent Force (ADF) to keep the peace in the Chouf, it is estimated that 250 Maronite villagers were killed in reprisal actions at the towns of Moukhtara and Barouk, and at the villages of Mazraet el-Chouf and Maaser el-Chouf.[62][60][63]

During the Mountain War, the predominantly Maronite Lebanese Forces militia occupied the Chouf District and tried to impose its authority by force, allegedly killing some 145 Druze civilians at Kfar Matta in September 1983 (although other sources allege that the death toll mounted to 200 people).[64][65] The Lebanese Forces command later accused the Druze PLA of committing "unprecedented massacres" in the Chouf,[66][67] after Walid Jumblatt's militia forces overran between 31 August and 13 September 1983 sixty-two Maronite villages (including Bmarian, Bireh, Ras el-Matn, Maaser Beit ed-Dine, Chartoun, Ain el-Hour, Bourjayne, Fawara, and Maaser el-Chouf), slaughtered 1,500 people and drove another 50,000 out of their homes in the mountainous areas east and west of Beirut.[68][69]

Like other Lebanese militias, the PLA was also involved in the kidnapping of political adversaries. In one occasion, on 23 September 1984 PLA fighters attempted to seize two Lebanese Army soldiers posted on sentry duty outside the Barbir Hospital in the Ouza'i district of West Beirut, though the latter managed to escape on foot towards the Army-manned Ojjeh checkpoint situated nearby at the Green Line, despite being pursued by their captors in a civilian car.[70] Later on 8 September 1988, the deputy for Jezzine in the Lebanese Parliament, Dr Farid Serhal, was seized by PLA militiamen at a checkpoint also in the Ouza'i district of West Beirut and driven off to the Le Bristol Hotel Beirut in Rue Madame Curie, Ras Beirut, where he was temporarily held hostage.

Upon the end of the war in October 1990, PSP/PLA militia forces operating in Beirut and the Chouf were ordered by the Lebanese Government on March 28, 1991 to disband and surrender their heavy weaponry by April 30 as stipulated by the Taif Agreement.[89] A total of 3,300 former PLA militiamen, including 50 officers, requested integration into the structure of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), but only 1,300 of these applicants were actually integrated. Some 800 ex-PLA fighters joined the re-formed Lebanese Army during the first stage, 160 of whom were attached to the Internal Security Forces (ISF) or the Lebanese Customs Administration. At a later stage, probably towards the beginning of 1992, an additional 500 Druze militiamen were integrated into the LAF and the ISF, with the process being completed by mid-1994.[90] Despite the order to disarm, some PSP/PLA guerrilla units continued to operate in southern Lebanon against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and their South Lebanon Army (SLA) proxies in the "Security Belt" until the final Israeli pull-out in May 2000. The PLA is no longer active.

Usually, PLA militiamen wore in the field a mix of military uniforms, western civilian clothes and traditional Druze garb,[91] though they were known to have worn a variety of battle dress, depending on whom they allied to and what other armed forces were occupying their territory.[25]

Headgear

PSP Beret and Soviet-made Afghanistan War Panama Hat resting on a PLA flag.

Usual headgear consisted of ex-Lebanese Army OG Baseball caps and US BDU caps, and black, midnight blue or olive green berets worn French-style, pulled to the left, although "Commando" units wore maroon berets instead. Soviet brimmed, circular sun hats in khaki cotton (Russian: Panamanka) were worn in the summer, replaced by the traditional Druze tan woollen cap in the winter;[92] a Ushanka-style shaggy black fur hat was sometimes seen. A black-and-white or red-and-white kaffiyeh was also worn around the neck as a foulard or wrapped around the head to conceal identity. In the field, PLA infantrymen could be found wearing a variety of helmet types, consisting of Syrian-supplied Soviet SSh-60 and SSh-68 steel helmets or captured US M-1 and French M1951 NATO (French: Casque Mle 1951 OTAN) steel helmets, and Israeli Orlite OR-201 (Model 76) ballistic helmets. Armoured crews received Soviet black tanker's padded cloth helmets or wore US fibreglass "bone dome" Combat Vehicle Crewman (CVC) helmets and CTVC DH-132 helmets in ballistic Kevlar captured from the Lebanese Army. In addition to helmets, some PLA militiamen also used captured flak jackets, either the Ballistic Nylon US M-1952/69 "Half-collar" vest and the Israeli-produced Kevlar Rabintex Industries Ltd Type III RAV 200 Protective Vest ("Shapats").

• Amal Mouvement
• Al-Mourabitoun
• Battle of the Hotels
• Holiday Inn Beirut
• Lebanese Arab Army
• Lebanese Civil War
• Lebanese Communist Party
• Lebanese Forces (militia)
• Lebanese National Movement
• Le Commodore Hotel Beirut
• Terry Waite
• Mountain War (Lebanon)
• Popular Guard
• War of the Camps
• Weapons of the Lebanese Civil War
• 2008 conflict in Lebanon
• 4th Infantry Brigade (Lebanon)
• 7th Infantry Brigade (Lebanon)
• 11th Infantry Brigade (Lebanon)

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• Chamussy (René) – Chronique d'une guerre: Le Liban 1975-1977 – éd. Desclée – 1978 (in French)
• Histoire militaire de l'armée libanaise de 1975 à 1990 (in French)
• PLA camouflage patterns
• PLA vehicles in the Lebanese civil war
• Progressive Socialist Party official site (in Arabic)
• PSP al-Anba'a official newspaper site (in Arabic)
• War Hotels: How Beirut's Commodore Hotel became a safe haven for world media (Aljazeera English documentary)