The Druze occupied the Chouf Mountain region, which dominated Beirut and the primary land routes leading from Beirut to Damascus. The Druze controlled the Peoples Socialist Party, or PSP, under its leader Walid Jumblatt, and operated the most heavily armed of the Lebanese factional militias (though their numbers were not great). The PSP's primary enemy were Christians, and their support and armament were provided by Syria, but included Soviet advisers at firing battery locations. By mid-1983, their armament consisted of approximately 420 tubes of modern Soviet artillery, including D-30 howitzers, BM-21 rocket launchers, numerous heavy mortars, air defense weapons, and thirty T- 54 Soviet-made tanks given to the PSP by Libya — all within range of Beirut and its suburbs.
The Syrian army controlled both the northeastern part of Lebanon and, more important, the Bekaa Valley and its population of Shiite Muslims.
Israel established a security zone in the south, where Christians, Palestinians, and Shiite Muslims lived together but hated each other.
Terrorism had meanwhile "advanced" to a stage of "state sponsorship." Sponsoring states included Syria, Libya, and Iran. The most dangerous of these, Iran, developed new forms of terrorist warfare — suicide bombings and hostage-taking — aimed at spreading the Islamic revolution through subversion and terrorism. The U.S.-educated Hosein Sheikholislam, a disciple of the Ayatollah Khomeini and a veteran of the U.S. Embassy siege in Tehran and later of the TWA 847 hijacking, was the chief architect of this campaign. The militant arm formed to carry it out was called Hezbollah, "Party of God," and consisted of fanatical fundamentalist Shiites drawn from all over the world. They were trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in camps, then sent back to their home countries to establish revolutionary cells. These were the most dangerous of all terrorists, willing to martyr themselves for the Islamic revolution. Because Westerners, and particularly Americans, were seen as the "Great Satan, " they became their primary targets. The main Lebanese base for Hezbollah operations (and terrorist training) was located at Baalbeckin Syrian-controlled territory in the Bekaa Valley, only an hour's driving time from Beirut. Hezbollah operating cells were established in West Beirut.
The "Movement of the Disinherited," known as the Amal, was headed by Nabih Berri, a lawyer, born in West Africa and educated in France, and whose family lived in the United States north of Detroit. Berri's goal was to reduce the power of the Christian minority, and to allow the Shiites, who now outnumbered the Christians, to use their numbers to dominate Lebanese politics. Amal was supported primarily by Syria, while its two primary enemies were the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Question: Were the Syrians and Amal friends?
Answer: When it was convenient.
Question: Were the Druze and Amal friends?
Answer: When it was convenient.
Question: Were the Syrians and Iranians friends?
Answer: When it was convenient.
Within Beirut itself were also several other independent militias, such as the Maurabi Toon, who claimed to represent what was called the Peoples Worker Party, but whose raison d'etre was criminaclass="underline" robbery, ambush, and kidnapping.
In June 1982, Israeli armed forces launched a full-scale invasion of Lebanon called Operation PEACE FOR GALILEE. Its aim was to clean out the PLO once and for all. In two weeks of fierce fighting, the Israelis drove the PLO from their strongholds near Israel's northern border, destroyed a major part of Syria's forces occupying the Bekaa Valley, including air defense batteries, tanks, and fighter aircraft, and pushed all the way to Beirut, where they linked up with the Christian Phalange militia and surrounded Muslim West Beirut, the center of militant Muslim activities in the capital. The PLO was now training their terrorists in West Beirut, as well as launching attacks against Israel and Jordan from there. It had also become the latest temporary refugee camp home for 175,000 Palestinians who had fled the earlier Israeli sweep in the south. Soon the Israelis were bombing West Beirut daily.
Israel's crushing blow to the Syrian military forces seriously humiliated the Syrian President, Hafez Assad. In the coming months, Assad turned to the Soviets for assistance in rebuilding his weakened forces, with payback against Israel a primary aim.
At this point, the U.S. State Department got involved, with a long-term goal to promote Lebanese stability — an impossibility as long as the PLO was there. The more immediate goal was to stop the fighting and to get the PLO, the Syrians, and eventually the Israeli forces out of the country. To that end, the State Department proposed sending in a multinational force to provide security for the withdrawal of the PLO to whatever Arab state was willing to take them.
Though the Joint Chiefs of Staff were opposed to committing U.S. forces to this venture, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger felt that other international partners would be reluctant to join the effort unless the United States took the lead. He also felt that a U.S. military presence in Beirut was the only way to stop the Israelis from destroying the city, and to obtain their eventual withdrawal from Lebanon.
On August 25, approximately eight hundred U.S. Marines, along with contingents from France and Italy, went ashore to position themselves between the Israelis, the Syrians, and the PLO.
Meanwhile, Tunisia agreed to accept Yasir Arafat and his PLO fighters. Their evacuation was completed by September 1. Ten days later, the Marines returned to their ships, and the French and Italians also withdrew.
Part of the PLO evacuation agreement included a promise by the American and Lebanese governments, with assurances from Israel and leaders from some (but not all) of the Lebanese factions, that law-abiding Palestinian noncombatants, including the families of evacuated PLO members, could remain in Lebanon and live in peace and security.
Two weeks later, Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel, whose daughter had already been killed in an ambush meant for him, was killed by a bomb placed on top of his house (it was thought) by a Syrian agent. Gemayel, a warrior who favored military solutions to internal problems, had been the leader of the Christian Phalange militia, whose chief supporter was Israel, and the man the Israelis had counted on for a peace treaty that would best serve the interest of their security. The death of Gemayel dashed all hopes for that. It was not in Syria's interest to see such a treaty come about, since by now Syria viewed Lebanon as a strategic buffer against Israel.
The next day, in violation of their guarantee to protect the Palestinian noncombatants who had elected to remain behind, the Israeli army entered West Beirut. Their stated justification was to protect the refugees and to clean out PLO infrastructure and supplies left behind by Arafat.
On the night of September 16, the Israeli army allowed the Phalange militia to enter the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra and Shatila in West Beirut to search for the source of sporadic gunfire aimed at the Israelis. It's hard to say why (local hatreds being so deeply rooted), but the Phalange went on a rampage. When the shooting was over, more than 700 unarmed Palestinians had been slaughtered.
The Lebanese government immediately requested the return of the U.S. Marines to protect the people of West Beirut.
Again, the Joint Chiefs strongly opposed it, but this time Secretary Weinberger joined the opposition. The previous Marine intervention had been a limited, short-term operation. This one looked open-ended and fuzzy — and therefore risked disaster.
President Reagan overrode their objections. He obviously felt that he had to do everything he could to prevent another massacre of Palestinians.