September 1983 On 3 September, the
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commenced the first part of a phased withdrawal plan codenamed
Operation Millstone, by quickly pulling out its troops from their positions on the southern edge of Beirut and from a section of the
Beirut-Aley-
Damascus Highway, and within twenty-four hours Israeli units had completed its redeployment south of the
Awali River line. Surprised by this unexpected Israeli move, the largely unprepared
Lebanese Armed Forces brigades (still being trained by the United States) then rushed south to occupy
Khalde and the road adjacent to Beirut International Airport, but ran into difficulties near Aley, where heavy fighting between the Druze and
LF militias persisted.
Opposing forces At this point, Jumblatt's 17,000-strong PSP/PLA militia was now part of a military coalition under the LNSF banner that gathered 300 Druze fighters sent by its Druze rival
Majid Arslan and head of the powerful
Yazbaki clan, 2,000
Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) militiamen under
Inaam Raad, 3,000
Nasserite fighters of the
Al-Mourabitoun led by the
Sunni Muslim Ibrahim Kulaylat, some 5,000
Popular Guards' militiamen of the
Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) under
Elias Atallah and an unknown number of
Arab Socialist Action Party – Lebanon (ASAP–L) fighters led by Hussein Hamdan. In addition, the Shia
Amal militia (not part of the alliance) at West Beirut was later able to mobilize 10,000 fighters. Their Palestinian allies of the LNSF included the
PFLP-GC led by
Ahmed Jibril and the
Fatah al-Intifada led by
Colonel Said al-Muragha (a.k.a. 'Abu Musa'), who fielded a few thousand hardened fighters. Both Amal and the PSP-led LNSF coalition received the discreet, yet fundamental backing of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the
Syrian Army, who provided crucial logistical and artillery support. The Lebanese Forces militia had about 2,500 lightly equipped Christian militiamen in the Chouf, mostly tied up in static garrison duties throughout the region's main towns whereas another 2,000 fighters were deployed alongside LAF ground units at west Beirut. The Lebanese Army committed nine newly formed
mechanized infantry brigades – the
Third Brigade,
Fourth Brigade,
Fifth Brigade,
Sixth Brigade,
Seventh Brigade,
Eighth Brigade,
Ninth Brigade,
Tenth Brigade and the
Eleventh Brigade – totaling roughly some 30,000 men, placed under the overall command of Lt. Gen. Tannous and the
Lebanese Armed Forces Chief-of-Staff, the Druze
General Nadim al-Hakim. Deployed in the western Chouf, and at both the western and eastern sectors of Beirut, the army brigades benefited from aerial, artillery, and logistical support lent by U.S. and French forces of the MNF contingent. In this post-Israeli period in the Chouf, the Lebanese Forces and the regular army occasionally fought side-by-side, but at other times were opponents. This lack of coordination between the LF and the government was due to the deep distrust that LF senior commanders felt towards President Amine Gemayel, its moderate political posture and relations with
Lebanese Muslim and
Palestinian leaders.
The Druze offensive . Most of the fighting occurred in terrain like this. As soon as the last Israeli units left the Chouf, the Druze launched on 5 September a full-scale offensive on Lebanese Forces' and Lebanese Army positions at
Deir el-Qamar,
Kabr Chmoun and
Bhamdoun. A garrison of just 250 Lebanese Forces' fighters commanded by
Paul Andari, the LF Deputy Field Commander of the Mountain District, were defending Bhamdoun, with orders to hold their positions for 12 hours until being replaced by Lebanese Army units. However, 72 hours later the expected reinforcements failed to arrive, and it became clear that the LF counter-offensive in the coastal town of Kfarmatta aimed at opening the road to
Bhamdoun had stalled. Warned at the last minute by the PLO of the eminent Druze offensive, Samir Geagea, the LF supreme commander in the Mountain region, issued a general evacuation order of all Christian civilians from the towns and villages of the Aley and Chouf districts towards the symbolic town of Deir el-Qamar, site of the Christian population massacres in 1860.
ZiS-3 76.2mm anti-tank guns mounted on
GAZ-66 trucks, four French
DEFA D921/GT-2 90mm anti-tank guns mounted on
M3/M9 half tracks,
TOW and
MILAN Jeeps,
Gun trucks and
technicals armed with
Heavy machine guns (HMGs) and
recoilless rifles, and
anti-aircraft autocannons mounted on wheeled
BTR-152 armored personnel carriers (APCs), plus two armored companies provided with Israeli-supplied
Tiran 4 and captured
T-54/55 Tanks, backed by mechanized infantry on
M3/M9 Zahlam half-tracks and
M113 armored personnel carriers, they tried desperately to hold their ground at Bhamdoun against a determined enemy now equipped with four Soviet-made
T-55A tanks, wheeled
BTR-152V1 APCs,
technicals armed with HMGs and recoilless rifles,
Gun trucks equipped with AA autocannons, heavy mortars,
ZiS-2 57mm anti-tank guns, long-range artillery, and
MBRLs supplied on loan by the PLO and
Syria. Bhamdoun fell on the 7th, followed two days later by Kabr Chmoun, forcing the Lebanese Forces troops' to fall back to Deir el-Qamar, which held 10,000 Christian residents and refugees and was defended by 1,000 LF militiamen; The Lebanese Forces Command in east Beirut later accused the Druze PSP of both ransacking Bhamdoun and of committing "unprecedented massacres" in the Chouf; in order to deny support, cover or a visible community for the LF to protect, the Druze implemented a
'territorial cleansing' policy to drain the Christian population from the region. In retaliation, some 127 Druze civilians were killed by LF militiamen between 5–7 September at the Shahhar-El-Gharbi region, Kfarmatta,
Al-Bennay,
Ain Ksour, and
Abey, where the LF also desecrated the tomb of a prominent Druze religious man. It is estimated that these 'tit-for-tat'
massacres and
ethnic cleansing ultimately led to the displacement of 20,000 Druze and 163,670 Christian villagers from the Chouf. When the Lebanese Army was forced to pull back on 12 September, in order to strengthen their position around Souk El Gharb, the Druze moved forward to fill the gap. This allowed their artillery point-blank line of sight to the U.S. Marines position at Beirut International Airport, overlooked by mountains of strategic value on three sides – designated the 'three 8' hills or Hill 888 – and on 15 September, Druze forces and their allies massed on the threshold of
Souk El Gharb, a mountain resort town that controlled a ridge to the south-east of Beirut overlooking the
Presidential Palace at
Baabda and the
Lebanese Ministry of Defense complex at
Yarze.
The Battle of Souk El Gharb At Souk El Gharb and the Shahhar-El-Gharbi however, the Lebanese Army was able to relieve the LF garrison units who had repulsed the first wave of Druze PLA ground assaults and were running out of supplies. For the next three days the army's Eighth Brigade led by
Colonel Michel Aoun bore the brunt of the attacks, fighting desperately to retain control of Souk El Gharb,
Kaifun and
Bsous, while the Fourth Brigade held on at Shahhar-El-Gharbi,
Kabr Chmoun and
Aramoun, and the 72nd Infantry Battalion from the Seventh Brigade held
Dahr al-Wahsh facing
Aley. The revived
Lebanese Air Force (FAL in the
French acronym) was also thrown into the fray for the first time since the
1975-77 phase of the Lebanese Civil War, in the form of a squadron of ten refurbished British-made
Hawker Hunter fighter jets sent to support the beleaguered Lebanese Army units in the Chouf. Since their
main air base at Rayak had been shelled by the
Syrian Army, the Hunters had to operate from an improvised airfield at
Halat, near
Byblos, built by the Americans by using part of the coastal highway. The first two combat sorties of the Lebanese Air Force were flown on 16 September, when three Lebanese Hunters, backed by a squadron of
French Navy's
Super Etendards from the
aircraft carrier Clemenceau made an attempt to bomb and strafe Druze PLA and Syrian Army gun emplacements in the Chouf. However, the Druze were awaiting for them with an array of Syrian-supplied
air defense systems, comprising
SA-7 Grail surface-to-air missiles,
M1939 (61-K) 37mm and
AZP S-60 57mm anti-aircraft guns, and
Zastava M55 A2 20mm,
ZPU-1, ZPU-2 and ZPU-4 14.5mm and
ZU-23-2 23mm autocannons. Two days later, on 18 September, the Lebanese Air Force Hunters flew another combat sortie against Druze positions in the Chouf, and on the following day, 19 September, a Lebanese
Scottish Aviation Bulldog two-seat
training aircraft flying on a reconnaissance mission over the Chouf was hit by ground fire and crashed near Aley, killing its two pilots. Lt. Gen. Tannous then requested urgent military support from the
United States to its beleaguered LAF units fighting at Souk El Gharb. At first, the Americans refused but eventually agreed when they were told that this strategically valuable town was in danger of being overrun. The
United States Navy nuclear-powered missile cruiser
USS Virginia, the destroyer
USS John Rodgers, the frigate
USS Bowen, and the destroyer
USS Arthur W. Radford fired 338 rounds from their 5-inch (127 mm) naval guns at the Druze PLA positions, and helped the Lebanese Army hold the town until an informal ceasefire was declared on 25 September at
Damascus, the day the battleship
USS New Jersey arrived at the scene. Moreover, it was a pyrrhic victory for the Lebanese Armed Forces, In response to a request from Walid Jumblatt to neutralize the Army, whilst another 1,000 Druze soldiers from the same unit refused to leave their barracks by order of their own commander, Colonel
Amin Qadi.
Geneva Reconciliation Talks The 25 September cease-fire temporarily stabilized the situation. The Gemayel government maintained its jurisdiction over west Beirut districts, the Shia Amal movement had not yet fully committed itself in the fighting, and Jumblatt's PSP/PLA remained landlocked in the
Chouf Mountains. The Lebanese government and opposition personalities agreed to meet in
Geneva,
Switzerland, for a national reconciliation conference under the auspices of
Saudi Arabia and
Syria, and chaired by President Gemayel to discuss political reform and the
May 17 Agreement. For its part, the
United States found itself carrying on Israel's role of shoring up the precarious Lebanese government. That same day, the
United States Congress, by a solid majority, adopted a resolution declaring the
1973 War Powers Resolution to apply to the situation in Lebanon and sanctioned the U.S. military presence for an eighteen-month period. U.S. vice-president
George H. W. Bush made clear the position of the Reagan administration by demanding that Syria "get out from the Lebanon". A large naval task-force of more than a dozen vessels was assembled off the Lebanese coast and an additional contingent of 2,000 U.S. Marines was sent to the country. The
United States Department of Defense (DoD) stated that the increase of its military forces in the eastern Mediterranean had been carried out to "send a message to Syria".
October 1983 American position Many international observers believed that these measures implemented by the U.S. government were meant to reshape the power balance in the region in favor of the
Amin Gemayel administration, to the detriment of the Syrians and their Lebanese allies. The
United States was now perceived in many circles as another foreign power attempting to assert its influence in Lebanese affairs by force, just as Israel and Syria had done. Alarmed by this American posture (which compromised the neutrality of the
Multinational Force) and fearing for the safety of their own MNF contingents in Lebanon, the British, French and Italian governments expressed their concerns, insisting with the Reagan administration to restrict its activities in the region to the protection of Lebanese civilians and to stop supporting what they considered an ongoing assault of the Gemayel government on his own people. However, President Reagan refused to modify his intransigent position and on 1 October, another shipment of arms was delivered to the Lebanese Army, which included
M48A5 main battle tanks (MBTs), additional
M113 armored personnel carriers (APCs) and
M198 155mm long-range howitzers. A few days later, the Druze LAF Chief-of-Staff and commander of the
Seventh Brigade, General Nadim al-Hakim, returned to the Saïd el-Khateeb Barracks at
Hammana along with the 800 Officers, NCOs and enlisted men who had deserted previously from the predominately Druze
Eleventh Brigade, and announced his decision to remain in the Chouf, while his troops took sides with the Druze PSP/PLA. The delivery of arms shipments was complemented by naval artillery barrages. Steaming to within two miles of the Lebanese coast, the battleship
USS New Jersey, the destroyer
USS John Rodgers and the nuclear-powered cruiser
USS Virginia fired from their 5-inch naval guns some six-hundred 70 lb shells into the wooded hills above Beirut. Unfortunately, the U.S. Navy eschewed proper reconnaissance and without sending
Forward air controllers to help spot accurately Druze PLA and Syrian Army positions, most of the shells missed their targets and fell in Shia- and Druze-populated sub-urban areas located on the edge of west Beirut and the western Chouf, causing hundreds of civilian casualties. For many Lebanese Muslims, this was the last straw – any illusion of U.S. neutrality had been dispelled by these recent developments and the MNF soon found itself exposed to hostile fire.
MNF barracks bombing in
Khalde, 23 October 1983. Early in the morning of 23 October, a suicide truck bomb struck the U.S. Marines' Battalion Landing Team 1/8 (BLT, part of the
24th Marine Amphibious Unit or MAU) building at Beirut international airport, killing 245 American servicemen and wounding another 130 marines and U.S. Navy personnel, followed a few minutes later by the mysterious implosion of the French 3rd company, 1er RCP Paratrooper's Barracks at the 'Drakkar' apartment bloc in the
Ramlet al-Baida quarter of
Bir Hassan,
Ouza'i district, which claimed the lives of 58 French paratroopers. Again, the Shi'ite Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing of the BLT building at the airport (but not of the 'Drakkar' apartment bloc) and warned of further attacks. The French promptly responded to the bombings with air strikes against Islamic Jihad targets in the
Beqaa Valley. French
Super Etendards from the aircraft carrier
Foch retaliated by striking
Nebi Chit, thought to house the
Islamic Amal (a splinter faction of the Amal movement), and also the
Iranian Revolutionary Guards' base at
Ras el-Ain near
Baalbek, but failed to hit the facilities and did only minor damage. They also struck at
Syrian Army's and Druze PLA positions in the Chouf region while U.S. warships kept up their artillery barrages against Syrian and Druze gun emplacements overlooking Beirut.
November 1983 These retaliatory measures failed to put an end to the bomb attacks however, and on 4 November the Israeli Military Governor's Headquarters in
Tyre was destroyed by a suicide truck-bombing, which cost the lives of 46 Israeli soldiers. Later that day, the
Israeli Air Force (IAF) retaliated with air strikes against Palestinian positions near
Baalbek in the Syrian-controlled
Beqaa Valley, despite the fact that responsibility for the attack had been claimed by the Iranian-backed
Lebanese Shia Islamic Jihad and not the PLO. The Israelis conducted additional retaliatory air strikes on 16 November, hitting a training camp in the eastern
Beqaa Valley. The next day, French
Super Etendards carried out similar strikes against another
Islamic Amal camp in the vicinity of
Baalbek. Persistent and occasionally heavy fighting in the southwestern suburbs of Beirut between the Lebanese Army and the Shia Amal militia continued throughout November. As the month ended, the
Chouf District continued to be the scene of frequent artillery and mortar exchanges between the LAF and Druze PSP/PLA forces, complemented by violent clashes at Souk El Gharb,
Aytat and other places in the region. The IAF continued to carry air strikes on hostile targets in the Chouf on 20–21 November, striking at
Bhamdoun,
Soufar,
Falougha-Khalouat,
Ras el Haref,
Ras el Matn,
Baalechmay and
Kobbeyh, losing a
Kfir fighter-bomber jet, most probably to an SA-7, near Bhamdoun (the pilot was rescued by the Lebanese Army). On 30 November, renewed artillery bombardments forced the closure of the
Beirut International Airport in
Khalde.
December 1983 American-Syrian confrontation in the Chouf aircraft of the attack squadrons
VA-15 Valions and
VA-87 Golden Warriors of
Carrier Air Wing Six (CVW-6) line the flight deck of the aircraft carrier
USS Independence in December 1983. Diplomatic tensions between
Syria and the
United States escalated to direct confrontation in early December when, despite numerous warnings from Washington, Syrian anti-aircraft batteries fired on a pair of U.S. Navy
Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance Pod System (TARPS)‑equipped
Grumman F-14A Tomcat fighter jets of
Fighter Squadron 31 (VF-31) from the aircraft carrier
USS John F. Kennedy flying on a reconnaissance mission over a section of the Beirut-Damascus Highway in the Syrian-controlled
Beqaa Valley. Determined to send a clear message to Syrian President
Hafez al-Assad, the Americans retaliated with an hastily devised air raid on 4 December, when twenty-eight
Grumman A-6E Intruder and
Vought A-7E Corsair II fighter-bombers, supported by a single
E-2C Hawkeye, two
EA-6B Prowlers and two F-14A fighter jets, took off from the aircraft carriers
USS Independence and
USS John F. Kennedy, flashed inland over Beirut and headed for eight
Syrian Army and Druze PLA installations, anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) sites and weapons' depots near
Falougha-Khalouat and
Hammana, within an eight-mile (12.87 km) corridor 20 miles (32.29 km) east of the Lebanese Capital. The list of selected targets included a Syrian-operated
Stentor battlefield surveillance radar, Syrian tanks, three artillery sites (which had 28 gun emplacements between them) manned by the Syrian Army's 27th Artillery Brigade dug in near the village of Hammana and positions held by the pro-Syrian ''
As-Sa'iqa'' Palestinian guerrilla faction in the Beqaa Valley, close to the Syrian border. As a demonstration of American resolve, however, the hurriedly-executed raid was a fiasco – once over their targets in the Chouf, the U.S. fighter-bombers dispersed and pounded Syrian Army and Druze PLA positions but ran into a heavy barrage of
anti-aircraft fire, so intense that the smoke in the sky rivalled that from the bomb blasts below. According to the
U.S. Defense Department, the barrage included a volley of about 40
surface-to-air missiles The U.S. Navy aircraft were opposed by an intimidating array of Soviet-supplied AAA systems comprising
ZPU-1, ZPU-2 and ZPU-4 14.5mm and
ZU-23-2 23mm autocannons mounted on
technicals and
Gun trucks,
M1939 (61-K) 37mm and
AZP S-60 57mm anti-aircraft guns in fixed positions, and plenty of highly mobile, radar‑directed
ZSU-23-4M1 Shilka SPAAGs surrounding Beirut, plus man-portable
SA-7 Grail and vehicle-mounted
SA-9 Gaskin surface-to-air missiles. Two American planes, one A-6E and an A-7E, were shot down by Syrian SA-7 Grail or SA-9 Gaskin missiles. The Pilot of the A-6E,
Lieutenant Mark A. Lange, ejected himself too late and was killed when his parachute failed to open properly while his Bombardier/Navigator, Lt.
Bobby Goodman managed to bail out successfully and was taken prisoner by Syrian troops and Lebanese civilians when he touched the ground; In flames, his stricken A-7E wavered for a moment in the air, and then exploded over the village of
Zouk Mikael in the
Keserwan District, 12 miles (19.31 km) northeast of
Beirut International Airport, killing one Lebanese woman and injuring her three children when the debris crashed into their house; a third plane, also an A-7E, suffered tailpipe damage, apparently from an SA-7 or SA-9. In west Beirut, violent clashes erupted in mid-December between the
Amal Movement and the Lebanese Army at
Chyah and
Bourj el-Barajneh, and again on 24 December when Lebanese Army detachments attempted to occupy strategic positions just vacated by the departing French MNF contingent at
Sabra-Shatila, situated on the road leading to the
Beirut International Airport. This time the Druze PLA joined Amal in the fighting, forcing the battered government forces to withdraw to east Beirut after a five-day street battle.
January 1984 On 5 January, the Lebanese Government announced that a disengagement plan to demilitarize Beirut and its environs had been approved by
Israel,
Syria, the
Lebanese Forces, and the Shia Amal and Druze PSP/PLA militias. However, implementation of the plan was delayed by continual inter-factional fighting in and around the Lebanese Capital and in the Chouf, but also in
Tripoli. Earlier that month, both Walid Jumblatt and Nabih Berri demanded that the Lebanese Army units should return to their barracks and abstain from getting involved in the ongoing internal conflicts; they also demanded the abrogation of the 17 May agreement with Israel. Such demands were accompanied by another round of heavy fighting around Souk El Gharb,
Dahr al-Wahsh,
Kaifun,
Kabr Chmoun,
Aramoun,
Khalde and the southern edge of Beirut, during which the Lebanese Army units positioned at these locations managed to blunt the Shia Muslim-Druze-LNSF drive towards the western districts of the Lebanese Capital. As sporadic fighting broke out again on 16 January, there were fears that the informal cease-fire that had generally prevailed since late September 1983 was breaking down. Druze PLA artillerymen again shelled Christian-controlled east Beirut and the Marines positions around the International Airport, with Amal and the Lebanese Army joining at the fringes. This in turn provoked a response from the 5-inch naval guns of the battleship
USS New Jersey and the destroyer
USS Tattnall, firing at Druze gun emplacements in the hills surrounding Beirut.
February 1984 The Beirut security plan As the month of February opened, it became painfully clear that the Lebanese Government and its Armed Forces were now faced with an ominous political and military situation. Artillery and mortar exchanges continued since mid-January between the Christian-held east Beirut districts and the Muslim-controlled west Beirut quarters, the
Chouf and the Beqaa, from which Syrian troops still provided logistical support to their Druze, Amal and LNSF allies. Determined to keep Beirut unified under Government control and to prevent the return of the militias to both western and eastern sectors of the Lebanese capital, Lt. Gen.
Ibrahim Tannous ordered Lebanese Army troops to take up positions along the
Green Line in the city center and its eastern approaches, being bolstered at some locations by Lebanese Forces militiamen. Despite this disadvantageous situation, the LAF Command decided nevertheless to reunify the Lebanese capital by implementing a hastily devised security plan, which called for the deployment of eight Lebanese Army mechanized infantry brigades throughout the
Greater Beirut area, placed under the overall command of General
Zouheir Tannir. In order to implement this security plan, the LAF Brigades were structured as follows: • The
Third Brigade, under the orders of Colonel
Nizar Abdelkader was positioned at the
Hadath and the
Faculty of Sciences sectors leading to the southern suburbs of Beirut. • The
Fourth Brigade, under the command of Colonel
Nayef Kallas was deployed at the towns of
Khalde,
Aramoun,
Kabr Chmoun and the Shahhar-El-Gharbi, being entrusted with the mission of defending the southern approaches of Beirut. • The
Fifth Brigade, under the orders of Colonel
khalil Kanaan was positioned at the
Sin el Fil suburb east of Beirut in the
Matn District as a reserve force, and the Brigade's primary mission was to provide support to the other Lebanese Army Brigades deployed in the
Greater Beirut area. • The
Sixth Brigade, under the command of Colonel
Lufti Jabar was tasked with the primary mission of maintaining order and security in west Beirut. • The
Seventh Brigade, provisionally under the orders of Colonel
Issam Abu Jamra was deployed at
Achrafieh and
Hadath in east Beirut, and at
Dahr al-Wahsh facing
Aley in the
Chouf District, where they faced the main anti-government Druze militia, the
People's Liberation Army (PLA) of the
Progressive Socialist Party (PSP). • The
Eight Brigade, under the command of Colonel
Michel Aoun remained positioned at
Souk El Gharb,
Kaifun and
Bsous facing the Druze PSP/PLA militia, being tasked with the primary mission of defending the south-eastern approaches to east Beirut, including
Baabda. • The
Ninth Brigade (still being formed), under the orders of Colonel
Mounir Merhi was deployed at the
Hazmiyeh and
Sin el Fil eastern suburbs of Beirut as a reserve force. • The
10th Airmobile Brigade (also still being formed), reinforced by a
Lebanese Army Commando battalion (
Arabic:
Fawj al-Maghaweer) led by then Major
Youssef Tahan, under the command of Colonel
Nassib Eid was held in reserve at east Beirut, ready to support the LAF Brigades in the field as required.
The February 6 Intifada and the fall of West Beirut Earlier on 1 February, Walid Jumblatt denounced the Lebanese Government's disengagement plan as a waste of time, while its Druze PLA troops linked the following day with Nabih Berri's Amal militia units in order to attack Lebanese Army positions in the Greater Beirut area, which marked the beginning of the battle for the Lebanese Capital. On 3 February, a combined Druze PLA/Amal full-scale offensive operation was mounted against Lebanese Army positions in the southern and eastern districts of the city, while fighting also erupted in the central area. At west Beirut tensions remained high, particularly between the Lebanese Army and the Shia militiamen of the
Amal Movement, who feared that the LAF Command was planning to launch a large-scale operation against their strongholds in the Shia-populated
Chyah,
Bir Abed,
Bir Hassan,
Ouza'i and
Khalde southwestern suburbs, where they had firmly entrenched themselves. All what was needed was the spark, and hostilities began three days later on 6 February, when the LAF Command of the Greater Beirut area decided to send the 52nd Infantry Battalion from the
Fifth Brigade in
M113 APCs supported by a Tank squadron provided with
M48A5 MBTs on a routine patrol mission, whose planned route was to pass through the
Dora suburb, the
Museum crossing in the Corniche el Mazraa, the
Barbir Hospital in the
Ouza'i district, the
Kola bridge, and the
Raouché seafront residential and commercial neighbourhood. Alerted by the presence of such a large military force entering west Beirut – which they viewed suspiciously as being abnormally reinforced for a simple routine mission – Amal militia forces misinterpreted this move as a disguised attempt by Government forces to seize the southwestern suburbs of the Lebanese capital by force. An alarmed Amal Command promptly issued a general mobilization order in the ranks of its militia, and as soon as the Lebanese Army patrol arrived at the
Fouad Chehab bridge near the
Barbir Hospital, they fell into an ambush. Several M48 Tanks that were leading the column were hit by dozens of
RPG-7 anti-tank rounds, which brought the advance of the entire patrol to a halt. Faced with the gravity of the situation, the LAF Command reacted by ordering a reposition of its combat units stationed in the Greater Beirut area and by setting up a new demarcation line across the western and eastern sectors of the Lebanese capital. Situated on portions of the old
Green Line, this new line went from the
Port district located on the eastern part of the
Saint George Bay to the town of
Kfarshima in the
Baabda District, and was designed to deny the Muslim LNSF and Christian LF militias any opportunity to gain control over both sectors of Beirut and at the same time, to act as a buffer between them. In addition, the Lebanese Army units present at west Beirut were reinforced by the 91st Infantry Battalion and the 94th Armoured Battalion from the
Ninth Brigade, under the command of Colonel
Sami Rihana. Placed at the disposal of the
Seventh Brigade's Command, these two battalions were positioned between the Port district and the
Sodeco Square in the Nasra (Nazareth) neighbourhood of the
Achrafieh district of east Beirut. That same day, the Muslim militias rose in an uprising, which became known as the
February 6 Intifada, when heavy clashes erupted at the Museum crossing in the Corniche el Mazraa between Army units and Amal militia forces, and the fighting quickly spread throughout west Beirut, escalating into the 'Street War' (
Arabic: حرب شوارع |
Harb Shawarie). Hundreds of Shia, Sunni and Druze militiamen from Amal, the PSP/PLA,
Al-Mourabitoun and other LNSF factions armed with automatic small-arms and
RPG-7 anti-tank rocket launchers, and backed by
technicals took to the streets, mounting combined ground assaults against all the positions held by the Army brigades deployed in the western sector of the Lebanese capital. This forced the LAF Command to alter its previously established demarcation line separating Beirut, and although still running from the Port district to
Kfarshima, it was re-adjusted to include the Museum crossing area, the Galerie Semaan and
Mar Mikhaël, a residential and commercial neighbourhood in the Medawar district. By the end of the day, amidst intense shelling, the Shia Amal and the Druze PLA took control over west Beirut in a matter of hours, seizing in the process the main Government-owned Television and Radio broadcasting stations' buildings. a massive artillery barrage by offshore U.S. warships pounded Druze PLA and Syrian positions in the hills overlooking Beirut, an operation that invoked the disapproval of the U.S. Congress. Once again, some of these shells missed their intended targets and killed civilians, mostly Shiites and Druze. In addition to destroying Syrian and Druze PLA artillery and missile sites, thirty rounds hit a Syrian command post, killing the general commanding the Syrian forces in Lebanon along with several of his senior officers.
The Lebanese Army's defeat in the Chouf Meanwhile in the Chouf, on 13 February the local Druze PLA forces and their LNSF allies drove the last remaining Lebanese Army and LF units from the towns of
Aley, Kfarmatta and others, with only
Souk El Gharb remaining firmly in Government hands. On that same day, an Amal force also succeeded in driving out other Lebanese Army units from their positions in the southern approaches to west Beirut, seizing Khalde (with the exception of the adjoining International Airport, still being held by the U.S. Marines). The
Lebanese Air Force Hawker Hunter jets flew their last combat sortie over the Chouf, carrying out air strikes against advancing Druze PLA forces on the western portion of the Shahhar-El-Gharbi region in support of the
Fourth Brigade's units reinforced by the 101st Ranger Battalion from the
10th Airmobile Brigade fighting desperately to retain their positions at
Aabey, Kfarmatta,
Ain Ksour, and
Al-Beniyeh, which achieved little success due to poor planning and lack of coordination with Lebanese Army units fighting on the ground. This situation was exacerbated by the fact that LNSF militias managed to intercept, alter, and retransmit Lebanese Army radio communications, which allowed them to impersonate the LAF command in east Beirut by ordering Fourth Brigade units to retreat to safer positions. Simultaneously, they ordered Lebanese Army's artillery units positioned at east Beirut to shell their own troops' positions in the western Chouf, which wreaked havoc among Fourth Brigade units and forced them to fall back in disorder towards the coast while being subjected to friendly fire. After reaching Damour and
Sidon, the soldiers were evacuated by sea under the auspices of the
Lebanese Navy to east Beirut, where they enrolled in the
10th Airmobile Brigade and other Christian-dominated army units. The next day, the towns of
Mechref and
Damour fell under the control of the PSP/PLA, while violent clashes raged around Souk El Gharb, the last government-held stronghold in the Chouf mountains. By this time, hordes of panic-stricken Lebanese civilian refugees were fleeing towards Israeli-held territory south of the
Awali River line, accompanied by a large number of dispirited Lebanese Army soldiers and LF militiamen. West Beirut and the Chouf had fallen to the Shia Amal, the Druze PLA and LNSF militias backed by Syria, and both the
Lebanese Armed Forces and the Lebanese Forces had been decisively defeated.
Collapse of the LAF The decisive defeat of the
Lebanese Armed Forces on two key fronts led it once again to disintegrate along sectarian lines, as many demoralized Muslim soldiers began to defect to join the opposition or confined themselves to barracks. It is estimated that 40% of the Lebanese Army's 27,000 active fighting men had gone over to support the Muslim militias or refused to take part in any further fighting against them. Following an open appeal by Nabih Berri, the predominantly
Shia Sixth Brigade deserted
en bloc to Amal, being subsequently enlarged from 2,000 to 6,000 men by absorbing Shia deserters from other Army units, which included the 97th Battalion from the
Seventh Brigade. – the Italians pulled out on 20 February, followed by the rest of the U.S. Marines detachment on 26 February. Amal militiamen took over their vacant positions, including those at the International Airport, which were handed over to the
Sixth Brigade. Faced with the crushing defeat and subsequent collapse of the LAF, and with his own status effectively reduced to that of Mayor of
East Beirut, President
Amin Gemayel had no choice but to go on 24 February in an official trip to
Damascus and consult the Syrian President
Hafez al-Assad on the future of Lebanon. Naturally, he was first required to renounce the American-sponsored 17 May Agreement with
Israel. Firing across the Green Line continued spasmodically, and on 22 March Druze PLA militiamen backed by Amal drove their erstwhile allies of the Sunni
Al-Mourabitoun militia and other smaller factions from their positions in the area, ostensibly to prevent any violations of the ceasefire. Their mission at an end, the last French troops of the MNF left Beirut on 31 March. The "Mountain War" was over. ==Consequences==