Lebanese Forces – Executive Command

The Lebanese Forces – Executive Command, or LFEC (Arabic: 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 1985 under the title Lebanese Forces – Uprising (LFU) (Arabic: Al-Quwwat al-Lubnaniyya – Intifada), and changed its name in 1986.

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 1985 by the Lebanese Forces' faction led by Samir Geagea. Renamed Lebanese Forces – Executive Command in 1986 and financed by Syria, Hobeika and its men conveyed little or no support at all from the Melkite Greek-Catholic citizens of Zahlé, who preferred to lend their backing to the mainstream Lebanese Forces and later, to General Michel Aoun.

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 in 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 American 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.^[1] 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 intelligence services.

During the 1988–1989 “Liberation War” they fought alongside Druze Progressive Socialist Party's People's Liberation Army (PSP/PLA) and Palestinian militias against General Michel Aoun’s troops at the second battle of Souk El Gharb, and later assisted Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) militiamen and Syrian troops in the capture of Aoun’s HQ at Baabda in October 1990, reportedly committing atrocities and engaging in looting.

Organization

By the late 1980s the LFEC numbered some 1,000 men, 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.

Disbandment

Although the LFEC was forced to disband shortly after the end of the war, many of its former members provided a cadre to a private security company set up and headed by Hobeika until his death by a mysterious car bomb explosion at his house in the Beirut suburb of Hazmiyeh in January 2002. The LFEC is no longer active.

See also

• Elie Hobeika
• Promise Party
• Lebanese Forces
• Lebanese Civil War
• Tyous Team of Commandos
• Young Men (Lebanon)
• Weapons of the Lebanese Civil War
• Zahliote Group

Notes

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, 1998. ISBN 0-333-72975-7
• 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) –
• Jean Sarkis, Histoire de la guerre du Liban, Presses Universitaires de France – PUF, Paris 1993. ISBN 978-2-13-045801-2 (in French)
• Moustafa El-Assad, Civil Wars Volume 1: The Gun Trucks, Blue Steel books, Sidon 2008. ISBN 9953-0-1256-8
• Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War, London: Oxford University Press, (3rd ed. 2001). ISBN 0-19-280130-9
• Samer Kassis, 30 Years of Military Vehicles in Lebanon, Beirut: Elite Group, 2003. ISBN 9953-0-0705-5