100 Years of Struggle for Palestine 3 (History of Hizbullah)

The movement’s militia, also designated Batallions de la Resistance Libanaise (BRL) in French, but simply known by its Arabic acronym ‘El-Amal’, was secretly established with the help of the Palestinian Fatah, who provided weapons and training at their Beqaa facilities. The formation of BLR/Amal was revealed in July 1975 when an accidental explosion of a landmine at one of the ‘Fatahland’ camps near Baalbek killed over than 60 Shia trainees, which caused considerable embarrassment to Fatah and forced Al-Sadr to admit publicly the militia’s existence citation needed]. When the civil war finally broke out in April 1975, Amal’s strength standed at about 1,500-3,000 armed militants, backed by a motor force of armed jeeps and gun-trucks (Land Rovers, Ford, GMC and Chevrolet pickups, Pinzgauer 710 light all-terrain vehicles, and US M35A2 2-1/2 ton cargo trucks) fitted with heavy machine guns, recoilless rifles and some anti-aircraft autocannons. By the mid-1980s however, the movement totalled 14,000-16,000 militiamen trained and armed by Syria, of which 10,000 alone were part-time male and female irregulars. The bulk of Amal’s regular forces was made of 6,000 ex-Lebanese Army regular soldiers from the Sixth Brigade, a predominantly Shia Muslim formation that went over to their co-religionists following the collapse of the government forces in February 1984 Commanded by the Shiite Major-General Abd al-Halim Kanj, and headquartered at the Henri Shihab Barracks in the south-western suburbs of Beirut, this formation was subsequently enlarged by absorbing Shia deserters from other Army units. The brigade aligned an armoured battalion fielding Panhard AML-90 armoured cars, AMX-13 light tanks and 30 Syrian-loaned T-54/55 MBTs, three to four mechanized infantry battalions on M113, Alvis Saracen and VAB (4x4) armoured personnel carriers, and an artillery battalion equipped with Soviet 122 mm howitzer 2A18 (D-30) pieces.In addition, the well-equipped Beirut-based Amal forces also operated three ex-PLO ZSU-23-4 ‘Shilka’ SPAAG tracked vehicles captured from the Al-Murabitoun in April 198 whereas their guerrilla units fighting in the south of the country were able to add a few M113 ZELDA and M3/M9 ZAHLAM half-tracks captured from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and their South Lebanon Army (SLA) proxies.