Lebanese Arab Army


The Lebanese Arab Army – LAA, also known as the Arab Army of Lebanon , Arab Lebanese Army or Armée du Liban Arabe 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.

Origins

On 21 January 1976 at the Elias Abou Sleiman Barracks in Ablah, Zahlé District, in the Beqaa Valley, 900 Lebanese Muslim soldiers serving with the 1st Armoured Brigade refused to fight against their coreligionists of the Lebanese National Movement and mutinied under the leadership of Lieutenant Ahmed Al-Khatib, a Tank officer who originally commanded a 40 men-strong armored company in Rashaya, and urged his fellow Muslims to desert. The mutiny quickly spread to other Army barracks and garrisons on the southern part of the Beqaa and the Jabal Amel – including the strategic Beaufort Castle, Rashaya, Aramayn, Marjayoun, Khiam, Nabatieh and Sidon – and within a month, Lt. Khatib had rallied to his cause some 2,000-3,000 soldiers from the First Brigade, well-equipped with heavy weapons. They became the core of the new Lebanese Arab Army , formally established on 31 January, who promptly went to the side of the LNM – Palestine Liberation Organization alliance fighting the Christian Lebanese Front militias on the ongoing Lebanese Civil War, and on 3 February the LAA published its Manifesto which promoted a political program centered on the Arabism of Lebanon, Democratization and secularization.
On the surface, Khatib's rebellion seemed a spontaneous act that reflected Muslim discontent within the Lebanese Armed Forces against their predominantly Christian leadership. The reality, however, was more complex. In fact, the mutiny had been secretly orchestrated by Fatah, the main Palestinian faction and had well-defined objectives. Fatah leaders – notably Yasser Arafat, Abu Iyad, Abu Jihad and Ali Hassan Salameh – had always regarded the Lebanese Army as a potential military threat to the PLO, a threat neutralized by the formation of the LAA. Moreover, Lt. Khatib was a pro-Palestinian Sunni Muslim dissident supported by the Rejectionist Front and Libya, and was himself ideologically aligned with the Lebanese Nasserist Al-Mourabitoun movement led by Ibrahim Kulaylat and the Progressive Socialist Party headed by Kamal Jumblatt.

Structure and organization

Headquartered at Hasbaya Barracks in the Beqaa Valley, the LAA numbered at its peak some 4,400 uniformed regulars, mostly Shia and Sunni Muslims and Druze. 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 units stationed in Lebanon after June 1976.
At the zenith of its power in March 1976, the LAA controlled three-quarters of all army barracks and posts in Lebanon, 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. 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 in Ras Beirut and the Grand Serail. 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.
Being Pan-Arabist and radical secularist in orientation, the LAA received financial and material assistance from Fatah, Iraq and Libya.

List of LAA commanders

The LAA was equipped largely from stocks drawn from Lebanese Army and Internal Security Forces reserves, with small-arms and vehicles taken directly from Army barracks and ISF police stations or channelled via the PLO.

Small-arms

LAA infantry units were issued FN FAL, M16A1, AK-47 and AKM assault rifles; FN MAG, M60, RPK and RPD light machine guns were used as squad weapons, with heavier Browning M1919A4.30 Cal and Browning M2HB.50 Cal machine guns being employed as platoon and company weapons. Officers and NCOs received FN P35 and MAB PA-15 pistols.
Grenade launchers and portable anti-tank weapons consisted of RL-83 Blindicide, M72 LAW, RPG-2 and RPG-7 anti-tank rocket launchers, whilst crew-served and indirect fire weapons comprised M2 60mm mortars, M30 4.2 inch mortars, B-10 82mm and M40A1 106mm recoilless rifles, and one-shot DKB Grad-P 122mm Light portable rocket systems.

Armoured and transport vehicles

By using the assets of the First Brigade, the LAA built a powerful armoured corps totaling 40 armored vehicles, including Charioteer tanks, M41 Walker Bulldog and twenty AMX-13 light tanks, M42 Duster SPAAGs, and Panhard AML-90 and Staghound armoured cars. Infantry units were provided with tracked M113, sixteen M59 amphibious and wheeled Panhard M3 VTT armoured personnel carriers; a few BMP-1 APCs were later captured from the Syrian Army in 1976.
Artillery units relied on military trucks and M5A1 artillery tractors to tow its field guns and howitzers.
A fleet of liaison and transport vehicles were also employed for logistical support, which included US Willys M38A1 MD jeeps, US M151A1 jeeps, US Kaiser M715 jeeps, US Jeep Gladiator J20 pickup trucks, US Chevrolet C-10 Cheyenne and Chevrolet C-15 Cheyenne light pickup trucks, British Land-Rover Mk IIA-III light pickups, plus heavier Saviem SM8 TRM 4000 4x4, Berliet GBC 8KT 6x6, British Bedford RL lorries, Soviet KrAZ 255 6x6, Chevrolet Series 50 light-duty, Dodge F600 medium-duty, GMC C7500 heavy-duty trucks and US M35A1 2½-ton 6x6 cargo trucks. They were also used as gun-trucks in the direct fire support role on LAA operations, fitted with heavy machine guns, recoilless rifles, and anti-aircraft autocannons.

Artillery

Their artillery corps fielded a number of artillery pieces of several types, comprising Soviet 2A18 122mm howitzers, French Mle 1950 BF-50 155mm howitzers, and US M101A1 105mm towed field howitzers. Yugoslav Zastava M55 20mm triple-barreled and Soviet ZU-23-2 23mm twin-barreled anti-aircraft autocannons were also employed in both the air defense and direct fire supporting roles.

The LAA in the Lebanese Civil War 1976-77

Closely allied with the Muslim-leftist Lebanese National Movement militias and the Palestine Liberation Organization guerrilla factions, the LAA battled the Christian-rightist militias of the Lebanese Front and the Army of Free Lebanon at Beirut, but also fought at the Beqaa Valley, and the districts of northern and southern Lebanon.
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 Christian Lebanese Front militias in late 1976.
On 5 March 1976 a LAA unit under the command of Major Ahmad Ma'amari clashed with the 200 men-strong, predominately Christian Lebanese Liberation Army dissident faction of the Lebanese Army at the towns of Al-Qoubaiyat and Andaket in the Akkar District of Northern Lebanon.
On 15 March, the LAA units stationed in Beirut, the Beqaa, and northern Lebanon announced their support to Brigadier general Aziz El-Ahdab's failed coup attempt against President Suleiman Frangieh, 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'ite Amal 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 from the Holiday Inn, in the Hotels district. Amid intense shelling, the LAA under Maj. Ahmed Boutari launched on 25 March a two-pronged combined ground assault with the LNM militias on the Presidential Palace at Baabda, where they fought the hard-pressed Republican Guard battalion and Marada Brigade militiamen loyal to President Frangieh, although he decamped to the safety of Zouk Mikael, near Jounieh, and later to Kfour in the Keserwan District. Eventually, the LAA armored columns coming from their barracks at Sidon, the Beqaa Valley, and Hammana were stopped and blocked by the Syrian-backed As-Sa'iqa guerrillas and Palestine Liberation Army troops at Khalde and Ouza'i near Baabda, at Chtaura in the Beqaa, and at Mdeidej and Soufar in the Aley District.
On late March–early April 1976, the LAA and the Druze People's Liberation Army militia fought the Internal Security Forces and Army of Free Lebanon's units during an unsuccessful attempt to raid the AFL Headquarters at the Shukri Ghanem Barracks complex in the Fayadieh district of East Beirut.
Besides engaging in combat operations, the LAA was also involved in training the Al-Mourabitoun militia.

The Vanguards of the Lebanese Arab Army

The Vanguards of the Lebanese Arab Army – VLAA 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, the commander of the First Brigade Colonel Ibrahim Shaheen, Major Fahim al-Hajj, Captain Jamil Al Sayyed, and Mahmoud Matar.
Headquartered at Rayak, close to the namesake Lebanese Air Force main Air Base, it was formally established as the VLAA on 3 June 1976 by Col. Ibrahim Shaheen, 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.
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, followed in August that year by the deployment of some of its elements around the southern town of Nabatieh.
For most of the time, VLAA personnel were either confined to barracks or guarded the adjoining Rayak Air Base, where most of the flying assets of the Lebanese Air Force where concentrated.

Decline and disbandment

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 PLA allies inflicted heavy losses on the Syrian 3rd Armoured Division – its numbers dwindled to a few hundred by the end of the year, 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. Many Druze soldiers also left the LAA to join the People's Liberation Army militia.

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. However, upon crossing the border to Syria, they were immediately detained and secretly held in the infamous Mezzeh Military Prison. After spending between 18–24 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, with their Officers and enlisted men being returned to the First Brigade which was re-incorporated into the official Lebanese Army order-of-battle in February 1977.