The Lebanese Front was a coalition formed on the eve of the civil war, consisting of leaders of the dominant Christian Maronite establishment and right-wing Lebanese nationalist parties with their affiliated military organizations. It was presided over by Camil Chamoun (NLP); its leadership included Pierre Gemayel (LKP), Suleiman Frangieh (president of Lebanon 1970-6) and other notable Maronite political, religious and intellectual figures. The leaders comprising the front favoured a neutral position of Lebanon with regards to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The front joined forces against the armed presence of Palestinian organizations in Lebanon, regarding the PLO as a threat to Lebanon's peace and sovereignty. The front was equally sceptical of Arab nationalism and strongly opposed left-wing proposed reforms. Its affiliated military organizations formed a joint military command in 1976 under the name of the Lebanese Forces.

Lebanese Kataeb Party or Phalange

Pierre Gemayel who led the Kataeb until his death in 1984 founded the party in 1936. It is a right-wing Lebanese nationalist party; its partisans are essentially Christian, mostly Maronite. The Kataeb was a central member of the Lebanese Front coalition. Gemayel's two sons, Amin and Bashir, played key roles in the party's politics and military organization, respectively. Bashir Gemayel was elected president of Lebanon in 1982; assassinated shortly after, he was succeeded by his brother Amin.

National Liberal Party  (NLP)

Founded in 1958 by Camil Chamoun, the NLP was a right-wing Lebanese nationalist party. The party held a predominantly Christian membership with pro-Western political views and anti-Arab-nationalism sentiments. Chamoun was the president of the Lebanese Front alliance, while his son Dani commanded the NLP's military arm, the Numur (Tigers). With the rise of Bashir Gemayel's command over the Lebanese Forces, the Numur's military power was forcefully terminated through violent battles in 1980. A significant number of the Numur partisans were absorbed into the ranks of the Lebanese Forces.

Tanzim

A small organization formed in 1969 by former members of the Kataeb party, George Adwan, Fouad Chemali and Fawzi Mahfouz, who were radically opposed to the presence of Palestinian forces in Lebanon. The organization held an important position within the Lebanese Front coalition and played a substantial military role. In 1977 the Tanzim split in two and the wing led by Mahfouz merged with the Lebanese Forces.

Guardians of the Cedars

A political movement and military organization established in 1975 on the eve of the war, led by a former police officer, Etienne Sakr (Abu Arz). Right-wing, ultra-Lebanese nationalist and hostile to Arabism, it called for the expulsion of Palestinian refugees and forces from Lebanon. The organization fought as part of the Lebanese Forces in the early years of the war. In the mid-1980s, it fought alongside the Israeli army in South Lebanon against the Palestinian forces and the Lebanese National Resistance Front.

Marada

A political movement formed by Suleiman Frangieh during his presidency (1970-6). Frangieh's son, Tony, commanded the Marada's military wing. Partisans are Maronites from the North Lebanon region of Zghorta. It fought alongside the Lebanese Front in the north between 1975 and 1976. However, Suleiman Frangieh's close relationship to Syria, his accusations that the other members of the front were cooperating with Israel, and the subsequent murder of Tony Frangieh by the Kataeb in 1978 led the Marada movement to rupture its alliance with the Lebanese Front.

 

The Lebanese National Movement was large and heterogeneous; it grouped leftist and national parties and was headed by Kamal Jumblatt. It was initiated in 1969 under the name of the Front of National and Progressive Parties. The movement strove for socio-political reforms that challenged national economic policies, the confessional system and the Maronite dominance of Lebanon's political system. The movement favoured Lebanon's active involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict and supported the Palestinian resistance in its liberation struggle.

During wartime, the combined forces of the LNM operated in conjunction with the PLO's different military factions. In 1976 Syria's intervention in Lebanon and its political discord with the LNM and PLO caused parties aligned with Syria to split from the LNM and forge an alliance under the name of the Front of Patriotic and National Parties. The assassination of Kamal Jumblatt in 1977 and Syria's control of the Lebanese political scene weakened the movement. Finally, the Israeli invasion in 1982 and the evacuation of the PLO forces contributed to the dissolution of the National Movement.

Operating under the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the Palestinian resistance grouped a number of organizations with varied ideologies, each with its own leadership and military apparatus: Fatah, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), Arab Liberation Front, as-Sa'iqa, PFLP - General Command, and the Palestine Liberation Army, the official military arm of the PLO.

In 1969 an agreement signed in Cairo between the Lebanese army and the PLO officially permitted Palestinian resistance while constraining it to Lebanon's southern border. Following the expulsion of the PLO from Jordan in 1970, the organization moved its headquarters to Lebanon. South Lebanon became an important base for military operations on the border with Israel. The resistance organizations benefited from the political support of left-wing and Arab nationalist parties and held Lebanese partisans among their ranks.

The PLO was a major actor in the war as it supported the combined forces of the LNM on many levels, lending financial support, military resources and training. Military factions of the PLO participated - unofficially - in the war fronts. However, Syria's intervention in Lebanon in 1976 and its pronounced discord with the PLO produced a different political set-up that rendered the PLO openly active in the armed conflict. Following the 1982 Israeli invasion, the PLO forces were evacuated from Beirut under the supervision of multinational forces.

Lebanese Communist Party (LCP)

It was founded in 1924 as the Communist Party of Syria and Lebanon, remaining so until 1944 when independent parties were established in each country. Its membership is multi-confessional; it grouped a large body of intellectuals and workers among its ranks. The LCP featured significantly in the National Movement and participated actively in the war front from 1975. In 1982 it formed the Lebanese National Resistance Front with other parties, and led major military operations against the Israeli occupation. The party suffered from the assassination of some of its prominent members throughout the course of the war.

Organization of Communist Action in Lebanon (OCA)

Founded in 1970 as a union between two radical-left movements, the OCA was an independent organization that adopted Marxist-Leninist thought. It represented the new left with an overwhelmingly youth multi-confessional membership that was inspired by the revolutionary struggles and protest movements of the late 1960s. It played an important role in the war politics, as its leader Mohsen Ibrahim was the executive secretary of the National Movement. Its military forces actively engaged on the war front and particularly in joined operations with the Palestinian forces in the south. The organization partook in the formation of the Lebanese National Resistance Front.

Founded in 1932 by Antun Saadeh, the SSNP held the objective of resuscitating historic Greater Syria as a unified social and geographic national entity. The party grew considerably and had multi-sectarian membership. Saadeh was executed by the Lebanese state in 1949, accused of an attempted coup d'état. The SSNP fought on many fronts alongside the LNM and the PLO in 1975 and 1976. With Syria's intervention in 1976 and rising tensions between LNM-PLO and Syria, the party's internal political divisions were aggravated. It suffered defections, forming a separate faction aligned with Syria. The party actively participated from 1982 in the National Resistance Front and undertook many military operations against Israeli occupation in Beirut and South Lebanon. The SSNP's resistance endeavours were halted in 1987 with the ascendancy of the Islamic Resistance coupled with heightened internal discords in the party leadership and politics of alliance with Syria.

Independent Nasserite Movement - Murabitun (INM):
Formed in 1958 and led by Ibrahim Koleilat, the Murabitun embraced the pan-Arab nationalist and socialist projects of the Egyptian president Gamal Abd-el-Nasser and was a firm supporter of the Palestinian resistance. Al-Murabitun, the movement's military wing, played a major part during the civil war, fighting among the combined forces of the LNM. Most of its members were Sunni Muslim. In 1985 the Progressive Socialist Party and Amal joined forces to suppress the Murabitun and forced Koleilat into exile.

Arab Socialist Union:
Its formation in Lebanon dates back to the early 1970s as a Nasserist movement tied to the Arab Socialist Union in Egypt. In 1975 the movement split into two factions, both of which were active in the LNM.

Other smaller Nasserist movements were equally active in Lebanon and partook in the civil war: the Popular Nasserist Organization, based in Saida, led by Maarouf Saad and subsequently his two sons; and the Union of Toiling Peoples' Forces, based in west Beirut and led by Kamal Shatila.