Lebanese Forces – Executive Command

The Lebanese Forces – Executive Command or LFEC (Arabic: القوات اللبنانية - القيادة التنفيذية | Al-Quwwat al-Lubnaniyya – Al-Qiyada Al-Tanfeethiyya), was a splinter group from the Lebanese Forces led by Elie Hobeika, based in the town of Zahlé in the Beqaa valley in the late 1980s. It was initially founded in January 1986 under the title Lebanese Forces – Uprising or LFU (Arabic: القوات اللبنانية - الانتفاضة | Al-Quwwat al-Lubnaniyya – Intifada), but later changed its designation.

Lebanese Forces – Executive Command
القوات اللبنانية - القيادة التنفيذية
LeadersElie Hobeika
Dates of operation1986–1991
HeadquartersZahlé (Beqaa)
Size1,000 fighters
Allies Lebanese National Salvation Front (LNSF)
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
Progressive Socialist Party (PSP)
Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP)
Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
Syrian Armed Forces
Opponents Lebanese Forces
Guardians of the Cedars (GoC)
Tigers Militia
Hezbollah
Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF)
Battles and warsLebanese civil war (1975-1990)

Origins

The LFU was formed by Hobeika at Zahlé out of his LF supporters, who sought refuge in the Syrian-controlled Beqaa after being ousted from east Beirut in January 1986 by the Lebanese Forces' faction led by Samir Geagea.[1][2] Renamed Lebanese Forces – Executive Command later that year and financed by Syria, Hobeika and its men conveyed little or no support at all from the Greek-Catholic citizens of Zahlé, who preferred to lend their backing to the mainstream Lebanese Forces and later, to General Michel Aoun's interim military government.

Structure and organization

Initially numbering just 600-700 fighters,[3] the LFEC by the late 1980s aligned some 1,000 militiamen, mostly Maronites, of which 300 operated in West Beirut whilst the remainder were kept in reserve at Zahlé. Apart from a few technicals equipped with heavy machine-guns, recoilless rifles and anti-aircraft autocannons, the militia had no armoured vehicles nor artillery of their own but usually relied on the Syrian Army's 82nd Armoured Brigade stationed at the Beqaa for armour and artillery support.

List of LFEC Commanders

Illegal activities and controversy

Generally regarded as a pro-Syrian proxy faction, the LFEC became known for their lack of restraint and discipline, and involvement in profitable criminal activities – besides allowing his men to abduct and rape many of the local women, Hobeika ran from his Headquarters at the Hotel Qadiri in central Zahlé an illegal international telecommunications' center and a drug-trafficking ring that extended through the Beqaa Valley.

The group is suspected of being implicated in a series of bloody bomb attacks in the mid-1980s, namely the failed attempt made alongside the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the pro-Israeli South Lebanon Army (SLA) to assassinate Sheikh Hussein Fadlallah of Hezbollah, which cost the life of his brother Jihad Fadlallah in March 1985 by a massive car-bomb explosion that also caused other 83 dead and 256 wounded.[4][5][6][7] The subsequent car-bomb campaign that plagued both West and East Beirut from March to July 1986 was allegedly carried out by the LFEC in collusion with the Syrian military intelligence services.

The LFEC in the Lebanese civil war 1986-1990

During the 1988–1990 Liberation War they fought alongside Druze Progressive Socialist Party's People's Liberation Army (PSP/PLA) and pro-Syrian Palestinian militias against General Michel Aoun's troops at the second battle of Souk El Gharb.[8][9] They later assisted Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) militiamen and Syrian troops in the capture of Aoun's HQ at Baabda on October 13, 1990, where they fought successfully the Aounist 5th Infantry Brigade defending it, and reportedly committed atrocities and engaged in looting.[1][2]

Disbandment

Upon the end of the war in October 1990, LFEC militia units operating in Beirut and Zahlé 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.[10] Although the LFEC was indeed disbanded, many of its former members went to provide the cadre for a private security company set up and headed by Hobeika until his death by a mysterious car bomb explosion near his house in the east Beirut suburb of Hazmiyeh on January 24, 2002.[11][12][13] The LFEC is no longer active.

See also

Notes
  1. Hassan, Maher (24 January 2010). "Politics and war of Elie Hobeika". Egypt Independent. Retrieved 29 December 2012.
  2. "Elie Hobeika". The Telegraph. 25 January 2002. Retrieved 29 December 2012.
  3. Makdisi and Sadaka, The Lebanese Civil War, 1975-1990 (2003), p. 44, Table 1: War Period Militias.
  4. O'Ballance, Civil War in Lebanon (1998), p. 155.
  5. Palmer Harik, Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism (2004), p. 37.
  6. Qassem, Hizbullah: The Story from Within (2005), p. 99.
  7. Gambill, Gary C.; Bassam Endrawos (January 2002). "The Assassination of Elie Hobeika". Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. 4 (1). Retrieved 15 June 2012.
  8. Micheletti and Debay, Victoire a Souk El Gharb – la 10e Brigade sauve le Liban, RAIDS magazine (1989), pp. 18-24.
  9. Barak, The Lebanese Army – A National institution in a divided society (2009), p. 159.
  10. Barak, The Lebanese Army – A National institution in a divided society (2009), p. 173.
  11. Mostyn, Trevor, The Guardian, 25 January 2002
  12. "Elie Hobeika Assassinated". Lebanese Forces. Archived from the original on 26 June 2012. Retrieved 15 June 2012.
  13. MacFarquhar, Neil (25 January 2002). "Car Bomb Kills Figure in 1982 Lebanese Massacre". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 July 2012.

References
  • Denise Ammoun, Histoire du Liban contemporain: Tome 2 1943–1990, Fayard, Paris 2005. ISBN 978-2-213-61521-9 (in French) –
  • Edgar O'Ballance, Civil War in Lebanon, 1975-92, Palgrave Macmillan, London 1998. ISBN 0-333-72975-7
  • Éric Micheletti and Yves Debay, Liban – dix jours aux cœur des combats, RAIDS magazine n.º41, October 1989 issue. ISSN 0769-4814 (in French)
  • Fawwaz Traboulsi, Identités et solidarités croisées dans les conflits du Liban contemporain; Chapitre 12: L'économie politique des milices: le phénomène mafieux, Thèse de Doctorat d'Histoire – 1993, Université de Paris VIII, 2007. (in French) –
  • Naim Qassem, Hizbullah: The Story from Within, Saqi Books, London 2005.
  • Oren Barak, The Lebanese Army – A National institution in a divided society, State University of New York Press, Albany 2009. ISBN 978-0-7914-9345-8 –
  • Jean Sarkis, Histoire de la guerre du Liban, Presses Universitaires de France – PUF, Paris 1993. ISBN 978-2-13-045801-2 (in French)
  • Judith Palmer Harik, Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism, I. B. Tauris, London 2004. ISBN 978-1860648939
  • Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War, London: Oxford University Press, (3rd ed. 2001). ISBN 0-19-280130-9 –
  • 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. –

Secondary sources
  • Moustafa El-Assad, Civil Wars Volume 1: The Gun Trucks, Blue Steel books, Sidon 2008. ISBN 9953-0-1256-8
  • Samer Kassis, 30 Years of Military Vehicles in Lebanon, Beirut: Elite Group, 2003. ISBN 9953-0-0705-5
  • William W. Harris, Faces of Lebanon: Sects, Wars, and Global Extensions, Princeton Series on the Middle East, Markus Wiener Pub, 1997. ISBN 978-1558761155, 1-55876-115-2
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