Tiger Militia
Tiger Militia ( Arabic , transcribed : numur ) was the military wing of the predominantly Christian National Liberal Party (NLP) during the Lebanese civil war .
The Tigers were founded in 1968 as katibatu-n-numuri-l-lubnaniya (The Lebanese Tiger Brigade) and were under the direction of Camille Chamoun . The group got its name from its middle name Nimr , the Arabic word for "tiger". They were trained by Naim Berdkan and led by Chamoun's son Dany Chamoun and later changed their name to numuru-l-aHrar (Tiger of the Liberals نمور الأحرار).
In the civil war
When the Lebanese Civil War began in 1975, the Tigers had a strength of 3,500 militants and were fighting the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) and its Palestinian allies, which from the end of 1976 also included the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The group was allied with the Kata'ib Party, also known as the Phalange , and the Guardians of the Cedar group and was involved in the Karantina massacres and the Tel al-Zaatar massacres , in which Palestinian refugees were the victims. In 1977 these militias formed the Forces Libanaises (FL), the military wing of the Lebanese Front . Power in the Forces Libanaises was soon taken over by their dominant group, the Phalange militia under Bachir Gemayel .
In 1980 the Tigers suffered heavy losses (several hundred were killed) and were destroyed as a combat unit by Gemayel's militia. Gemayel proposed that LF under his command as the only Christians enforce militia and the Marada Movement of Suleiman Frangieh suffered the same fate. Dany Chamoun fled to Syria and then took his seat in West Beirut . Ultimately, he returned to East Beirut, where he was assassinated in 1990 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Introduction to Political Parties ( Memento of February 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive )