EFFORTPOST Snapshots of the Lebanese Civil War - Shi'a Militias

This is the third part of a series where I look at what the situation was for each faction in the Lebanese Civil War every 5 years. It's not meant to cover all the important events of the war, but just to show you how much the fortunes of a person or group could change in so little time.

Part 1: Syria

Part 2: Christian Militias

It was much harder to write about the Shi'a militias as they remain somewhat mysterious. There is abundant sources in English for all the minutiae of what the Christians were up to, but most people who write in English don't know or don't care about the Shi'a. It's even more difficult since Hezbollah was so good at keeping secrets. We still don't know for sure how they were organized, who was really leading them, or how they made decisions. I've also had to greatly simplify some things that were just too complicated to explain, like how the Shi'a and Palestinians interacted. Finding photos was even harder than the research, partly because search engines suck so much these days. I had to translate my search terms into Arabic just to find anything that didn't have a Getty Images watermark.

I repeat my cavaet before that this is about Shi'a organizations, not all Shi'a people. Many of them joined other groups of all kinds: the Lebanese army, Fatah, the SSNP, the Communist Party, the South Lebanon Army. Most had nothing to do with the militias at all.

1975

While the Palestinians and Maronites were training for the impending war, the Shi'a were much less militant. They lived mostly in the Bekaa valley and the south, far from the struggles going on in Beirut. Politics was left to the feudal landowners who dominated rural society. In 1975 their political awakening was just beginning. The charismatic Iranian-born Imam Musa al-Sadr had founded a movement to demand better treatment for the poor who never benefited from all the wealth passing through Beirut. As war broke out he formed his own militia, Amal. Sadr wanted change in Lebanon, but he was not a radical like the leftist Druze leader Kamal Joumblatt. During the intense fighting of 1975-1976 Amal did some fighting against the Lebanese Forces but Sadr kept them out of the action for the most part.

Children in Akkar on their way to fill up water from a well, July 1967. source

Sadr was unique among the faction leaders. Unlike the Maronite and Palestinian warlords he didn't shake down the population in his area for protection money. He sponsored the construction of schools and hospitals in the deprived regions of the country. He was widely respected outside of his own sect as a man who truly wanted to ease the burden of all the oppressed in Lebanon, no matter their sect. Somehow he managed to maintain close relationships with both the Iranian exiles plotting to overthrow the Shah and the Shah's secret police. Iran, flush with cash from booming oil prices, sent money to help Sadr in his charitable works. If there was one person in Lebanon who had the political and military power, the foreign contacts, and the temperament to bring the warring factions together and make peace, it was Musa al-Sadr.

Musa al-Sadr hanging out with his bros, the oppressed peoples of Lebanon.

1980

By 1980 Sadr was dead. On a trip to ask Arab leaders for help during Israel's raid in 1978 he arrived in Libya and was never heard from again, undoubtedly killed by Ghaddafi. His successors Hussein el-Husseini (yes, that's his real name) and Nabih Berri were shrewd but did not have the gravitas of Sadr.

In America they anglicized their name to Berry. I think raspberries are my favorite. They're so easy to grow.

The south was in crisis. Palestinian guerillas from a dozen different factions roamed freely with heavy weapons, oppressing the Shi'a population worse than the government ever had. Their terrorist raids into Israel provoked the Israelis to bomb and shell the border areas. In 1978 a major IDF raid swept over the border area, displacing around 200,000 people. They had nowhere to go except the slums sprouting up in the south of Beirut. Amal was building up its militia but it was in no shape to take on the Palestinians.

Kataeb militia in the the Maronite village Klea on the border. There was a large Christian minority in the south living in scattered villages. They fought for both sides in large numbers.

Meanwhile huge events were happening in Iran. The Shah was overthrown and replaced by Khomeini's revolutionaries, many of whom had been associates of Musa al-Sadr. The new regime kept sending aid to Amal, but some cracks were developing in Shi'a solidarity. Many members of Amal were inspired by the Iranian Revolution and wanted to emulate it. Amal's leaders were not so hot-headed and understood that they could no more build a Shi'a theocracy in Lebanon than they could on the moon. Nabih Berri came from an entirely different world from these rural fanatics. He was well versed in modern society, even working for General Motors in Dearborn for a time. This disconnect between the secular side of Amal and the devout revolutionary side would only deepen over time.

Ayatollah Khomeini having a nice little chortle. He actually smiled but there was some kind of unwritten rule among Western journos that you could only ever show pictures of him scowling.

1985

The cracks emerging in Amal had burst open by 1985. The fanatical elements of Amal had broken away to form Hezbollah. Some Shi'a who had been fighting for Palestinian groups also joined. While Amal's patron was Syria, Hezbollah was armed and trained by Syria's ally Iran. It was an awkward situation as the two rival groups in Lebanon were supposed to get along with each other like their patrons did. Hezbollah during this period was notorious around the world for their suicide bombings. Other groups used suicide bombers, even Christian ones (the SSNP), but Hezbollah stunned the world with devastating attacks against the US Marines and French, the US Embassy, another US Embassy building, and the Israeli headquarters in Tyre. They also began taking hostages, any Westerner they could no matter how innocent they were. Syria was not pleased as it did not want to bring down the wrath of America, especially when these terrorist attacks served more to serve Iran's interests than bring victory in Lebanon.

Survivors search the ruins of the US Marine barracks where 241 men were killed by a single suicide bomber.

The Israeli invasion of 1982 was not immediately opposed by the Shi'a of the south. Some even welcomed them as liberators come to drive out the Palestinians who had been tormenting them. But instead of cultivating them as potential allies, the Israelis treated them like a conquered enemy. Tensions rose, the Israelis began assassinating local imams, and a guerilla war soon broke out with both Hezbollah and Amal fighting the occupation forces. By 1985 the Israelis were in the process of withdrawing to their "security zone", a strip of land along the border, but the war would continue.

The most important event for the Arab world in 1982: Algeria beat West Germany at the World Cup!

Amal was now the largest militia in the nation. The invasion had driven even more refugees into Beirut and, desperate for money, they were easy to recruit. Several small militias had disbanded during the Israeli occupation and now many of the survivors joined Amal. The rapid expansion of the militia made it one of the most powerful forces in Lebanon but also lead to discipline problems as men from different backgrounds with different motives were hired. Weapons and ammunition flowed in from Syria, including a lot of artillery.

When Syria made an effort to bring together all the sects to make peace in 1985 (the "Tripartite Pact"), he brought in Amal, the Druze, and the Lebanese Forces. By now the militia was not just recognized as representing the Shi'a, but as one of the most powerful factions in the nation.

A mother tries to get her children to safety as the Syrians and their allies attack the Shatila refugee camp yet again. This massacre never caught the attention of Western media because it happened bit by bit over years.

Amal had always been friendly with Assad's regime but now it had practically become an extension of it. Berri was forced to do Syria's dirty work, joining with other Syrian-dominated groups to besiege the remaining Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut (the "War of the Camps". Fighting continued on and off for years as Assad was determined to not let Fatah ever use the camps as bases again.

Civilians evacuate Shatila with the help of the Red Cross, 1987.

Despite its relationship with Syria, Amal also tried to get along with Western powers. Hezbollah's kidnappings put them in a difficult position. Amal's failure to rescue them could be interpreted as either protecting Hezbollah or, even worse for their image, that they were not really in control of the chaos in West Beirut. They used the US as a conduit to indirectly negotiate with the Israelis and try to reduce the level of violence in south Lebanon where both Amal and Hezbollah were carrying out guerilla attacks on the Israeli troops remaining in the border zone.

Terry Waite on his way to negotiate with Hezbollah for the release of the hostages. They took him hostage too. He spent 4 years in solitary.

1990

Amal was now no longer a top-tier military power on the same level as Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces. They had suffered badly in clashes with the Druze in West Beirut ("The War of the Flag") followed by the inevitable clash with Hezbollah, the "War of Brothers". Their militia was large but bloated with troops who were inexperienced and poorly motivated. They were no match for Hezbollah's troops, who were trained intensively by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards at bases in the Bekaa Valley. The war lasted on and off into 1990 with countless temporary cease-fires. Amal put up a good fight in the beginning but Hezbollah gradually gained the upper hand. By the end of the struggle, Amal was in terrible shape. Iran could afford to pay its proxy troops far more than impoverished Syria, so many Amal fighters defected to Hezbollah. In both of these wars, Amal had to be rescued by Syrian military intervention, making them even more dependent.

Amal militiamen, 1980s. source

While Amal's military power was cut down drastically by these defeats, it remained an important player in politics. Hezbollah was hampered by its mission to spread the Iranian Revolution. Most Shi'a were not interested in Ayatollah Khomeini's strange new form of Islam. His vision may have appealed to many rural Iranians but it was less compelling to Arabs who had lived side by side with other religions for countless generations. The idea of establishing a theocratic state where 2/3 of the population weren't even in the same sect was ludicrous, and even if it had been possible most Shi'a would not have wanted it. Hezbollah won on the battlefield but still lost the vote.

Iran banned these bloody rituals done on Ashura. Hezbollah followed their lead and stopped but many Shi'a Lebanese did not.

Hezbollah's military power and the skill of Amal's envoys gave the Shi'a an important seat at Taif where the final settlement of the war was negotiated. At first glance, the agreement doesn't seem to do much for the Shi'a, but there was one important change. Power was shifted from the president to the cabinet, which needed a quorum of 2/3 of its members to do business. In practice, about 1/3 of the cabinet will represent Shi'a parties, so if they have a few allies they can effectively veto anything that the government wants to do by just not showing up.

If you google "amal" you get pages and pages of Amal Clooney. But she's kind of r-slurred so I decided to post Salma Hayek instead.

Hezbollah had a unique position after the peace agreement. Their war wasn't over yet. They still had to drive out the Israelis. While all the other militias were disarmed, Hezbollah was allowed to keep their weapons.

Epilogue

Amal and Hezbollah mended their differences and as the "Shiite Duo" they now cooperate closely. Hezbollah does the bulk of the fighting while Nabih Berri of Amal, a master at patronage and manipulation, handles the parliament. By not attending cabinet meetings they are able to block the government from doing anything they disapprove of. Unfortunately this means nothing ever gets done. The government is completely paralyzed and unable to deal with the many crises that have hit the country in recent years.

Hezbollah troops celebrating on the day of Israel's evacuation.

Hezbollah did in fact use its weapons to great effect over the next 10 years. In the late 1990s Iran began supplying them with antitank missiles. At the same time, Hezbollah managed to thoroughly infiltrate the SLA (Israel's puppet army on the border) and kill or capture key leaders. The Israelis were reduced to cowering in their bunkers. In 2000 the decision was finally made to pull the plug. Without even waiting for the day they had planned to leave, the IDF abruptly abandoned their positions and headed home. Hezbollah had won. The purpose for which it was created had been fulfilled. This would have been a great time for them to lay down their guns or integrate themselves into the national army. But of course nobody puts their guns down when they're on a winning streak. Hezbollah now has come full circle, shooting across the border into Israel and triggering devastating retaliation just like the Palestinians had when they ruled the south.