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The Lebanese Front [a] was a coalition of mainly right-wing Lebanese Nationalist parties formed in 1976 by majority Christian groups during the Lebanese Civil War. [1] It was intended to act as a reaction force to the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) of Kamal Jumblatt and other left-wing allies.
The Lebanese Front was presided by the former president of Lebanon, Camille Chamoun, and its main participants were Pierre Gemayel, the founder and leader of the then-largest political party in Lebanon, the Kataeb Party, president Suleiman Frangieh, who had just finished his presidential years in office. [1] It also included first class intellectuals, such as distinguished professor of philosophy and eminent diplomat Charles Malik who had been president of the United Nations General Assembly in 1958, and Fouad Frem al-Boustani, the president of the Lebanese University. The front also included religious figures such as Father Charbel Qassis, who was later replaced by Father Bulus Naaman the "head of the permanent congress of the Lebanese monastic orders". [1] For a brief while the poet Said Aql was a member.
As soon as the war erupted in Lebanon, and before the Lebanese Front was formed, many of the future leaders of the Lebanese Front organized their political parties into militias, most notably Camille Chamoun's National Liberal Party, Pierre Gemayel's influential longstanding Kataeb Party, and Suleiman Frangieh's Marada Brigade. The number of men totalled around 18,000, which was a relatively large number given that the total population of Lebanon was less than three million.
However, the relations among the participants became tense mainly due to Frangieh's pro-Syrian approach. [2] In addition, in 1978, Suleiman Frangieh's son Tony and his family were killed by armed Kataeb militiamen trying to kidnap him acting on orders from Bashir Gemayel, the son of Pierre Gemayel. [3] The incident is known as the Ehden massacre. It was this turning point that prompted Suleiman Frangieh to resign from the Front. [3]
In 1982, the Lebanese Front promoted Bachir Gemayel for the presidency. He was elected as president by the Lebanese parliament by 58 out of 62 votes from both Christians and Muslims, only to be assassinated three weeks later.
During the second half of the 1980s, most of the prominent leaders of the Lebanese Front died (Pierre Gemayel in 1984, both Chamoun and Charles Malik in 1987) and were replaced by other leaders like George Saadeh, Amin Gemayel and Karim Pakradouni. The Lebanese Front then lived for a short period only. Dany Chamoun, son of deceased Camille Chamoun, formed a new Lebanese Front, but a week after the end of the Lebanese Civil War in October 1990, Dany was assassinated and the Lebanese Front came to an end.
Camille Nimr Chamoun was a Lebanese politician who served as the 2nd president of Lebanon from 1952 to 1958. He was one of the country's main Christian leaders during most of the Lebanese Civil War.
The Kataeb Party, officially the Kataeb Party – Lebanese Social Democratic Party, also known as the Phalangist Party, is a right-wing Christian political party in Lebanon founded by Pierre Gemayel in 1936. The party and its paramilitary wings played a major role in the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), opposing Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon as well as collaborating with Israel. During the 1982 war, Phalangist militiamen committed the infamous Sabra and Shatilla massacre with support from the IDF. The Phalangists were also responsible for the Black Saturday massacre, the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, Ehden massacre, and the Karantina massacre, some of the worst massacres committed during the Lebanese Civil War. In 1982, Pierre's youngest son Bachir, the leader of the party's militia, was elected President, but was assassinated before he could take office. He was succeeded by his older brother Amine, who led the party through much of the war. In decline in the late 1980s and 1990s, the party slowly re-emerged in the early 2000s and is currently part of the Lebanese opposition. The party currently holds 4 out of the 128 seats in the Lebanese Parliament.
Amine Pierre Gemayel is a Lebanese politician who served as the eighth president of Lebanon from 1982 to 1988.
Dany Chamoun was a prominent Lebanese politician. A Maronite Christian, the younger son of former President Camille Chamoun and brother of Dory Chamoun, Chamoun was also a politician in his own right. He was murdered on October 21, 1990 at age 56, along with his family.
Antoine "Tony" Suleiman Frangieh was a Lebanese politician and militia commander during the early years of the Lebanese Civil War. He was the son of Suleiman Frangieh, a former Lebanese president.
The National Liberal Party is a nationalist political party in Lebanon, established by President Camille Chamoun in 1958. It is now under the leadership of Camille Dory Chamoun, his grandson, who is the MP for the Maronite seat in Baabda, elected in the 2022 Lebanese parliamentary elections allied with the Lebanese Forces Party.
Pierre Amine Gemayel, also spelled Jmayyel, Jemayyel or al-Jumayyil, was a Lebanese political leader. A Maronite Catholic, he is remembered as the founder of the Kataeb Party, as a parliamentary powerbroker, and as the father of Bachir Gemayel and Amine Gemayel, both of whom were elected to the presidency of the republic in his lifetime.
Dory Chamoun is a Lebanese politician who led the National Liberal Party (NLP) from 25 May 1991 till 10 April 2021, when he was succeeded by his son Camille Dory Chamoun who became an MP in the 2022 Lebanese general election. He is also a prominent member of the Qornet Shehwan Gathering, a coalition of politicians, academics, and businessmen who oppose the pro-Syrian March 8 Alliance and Syrian influence in Lebanon. He is the eldest son of late Lebanese president Camille Chamoun and brother of Dany Chamoun.
The Marada Movement is a Lebanese political party and a former militia active during the Lebanese Civil War named after the legendary Marada warriors of the early Middle Ages that fought on the external edge of the Byzantine Empire. Originally designated the Marada Brigade, the group initially emerged as the personal militia of Suleiman Frangieh, president of Lebanon at the outbreak of the war in 1975, which also had a Parliamentary wing known as the Frangieh Bloc. They were also initially known as the Zgharta Liberation Army, after Frangieh's hometown of Zgharta in northern Lebanon.
The Lebanese Forces is a Lebanese Christian-based political party and former militia during the Lebanese Civil War. It currently holds 19 of the 128 seats in Lebanon's parliament, being the largest party of the country.
The Tigers militia, also known as NLP Tigers, Tigers of the Liberals or PNL "Lionceaux" in French, was the military wing of the National Liberal Party (NLP) during the 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War.
The 1975 Beirut bus massacre, also known as the Ain el-Rammaneh incident and the Black Sunday, was the collective name given to a short series of armed clashes involving Phalangist and Palestinian elements in the streets of central Beirut, which is commonly presented as the spark that set off the Lebanese Civil War in the mid-1970s.
The Helf Alliance or Tripartite Alliance, was a right-wing coalition formed in 1968 by the big three mainly Christian parties in Lebanon: The Pierre Gemayel's Kataeb, the National Liberal Party of former President Camille Chamoun, and National Bloc of Raymond Eddé. The coalition called for a Lebanese Nationalism as Regional and internal tensions rise, and as relations with PLO spoils. It was also seen as a counter-force against the Arabist line incarnated during his mandate by President Fuad Chehab. The alliance well-performed in 1968 Parliamentary elections winning 30 seats in the 99 member National Assembly - the best result until 2005 elections for any organized electoral force in Lebanon's notoriously fractured legislature. In 1969, the National Bloc left the alliance over a disagreement about the Cairo Agreement. The Kataeb and the NLP, still close allies, went on to form the Lebanese Front in 1976 while expanding their Christian canton amidst the Lebanese Civil War.
Bachir Pierre Gemayel was a Lebanese militia commander who led the Lebanese Forces, the military wing of the Kataeb Party, in the Lebanese Civil War and was elected President of Lebanon in 1982.
The Zgharta Liberation Army – ZLA, also known as Zghartawi Liberation Army, was the paramilitary branch of the Lebanese Marada Movement during the Lebanese Civil War. The militia was formed in 1967 by the future President of Lebanon and za'im Suleiman Frangieh as the Marada Brigade (also translated as Mardaite Brigade seven years before the war began. The force was initially commanded by Suleiman Franjieh's son, Tony Frangieh until his killing in the 1978 Ehden massacre. It operated mainly out of Tripoli and Zgharta, but it also fought in Beirut. The ZLA fought against various Palestinian and Lebanese Muslim militias as well as the Lebanese Forces in Bsharri and Ehden.
The Tyous Team of Commandos – TTC or simply Tyous for short, was a small far-right Christian militia which fought in the 1975–78 phase of the Lebanese Civil War.
The Kataeb Regulatory Forces – KRF or Forces Régulatoires des Kataeb (FRK) in French, were the military wing of the right-wing Lebanese Christian Kataeb Party, otherwise known as the 'Phalange', from 1961 to 1977. The Kataeb militia, which fought in the early years of the Lebanese Civil War, was the predecessor of the Lebanese Forces.
The Ehden massacre took place on 13 June 1978, during the 1975–1990 Lebanese Civil War. It was an inter-Christian attack between Maronite clans. A Kateab militia attacked the summer house of the Frangieh family in Ehden leading to the death of over 40 people including Tony Frangieh and his family. Tony Frangieh was the eldest son of Sulaiman Frangieh, leader of the Maranda Brigade and scion of one of the most powerful northern Maronite clans. He was 36 years old when he was killed.
On January 15, 1986, forces loyal to Lebanese president Amine Gemayel and Samir Geagea, intelligence chief of the Lebanese Forces (LF), ousted Elie Hobeika from his position as leader of the LF and replaced him with Geagea. The coup came in response to Hobeika's signing of the Syrian-sponsored Tripartite Accord that aimed to put an end to the Lebanese Civil War.
