It was mainly staffed by Maronite Christians loyal to Bachir Gemayel, and fought against the Lebanese National Movement, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Syrian Armed Forces among others.

[2] The success of the Siege of Tal al-Zaatar being due to the combined forces of the Tigers Militia, Kataeb Regulatory Forces, Lebanese Youth Movement (MKG), Al-Tanzim, and the Guardians of the Cedars convinced the Lebanese Front leaders, especially Etienne Saqr and Bachir Gemayel, that a unitary militia was needed to further face their enemies.

Christian East Beirut was ringed by heavily fortified Palestinian camps and as the war progressed a strong organized force was needed.

Another major clash took place near the Sodeco area in Achrafieh where the Lebanese Forces fought ferociously and drove the Syrian army out of the Rizk Building.

[6][7] After the PLO had been expelled from the country and moved its headquarters to Tunisia, in a negotiated agreement, Bachir Gemayel became the youngest man to ever be elected president of Lebanon.

Bachir refused to accept the offer of immediate peace by arguing that time was needed to reach a consensus with the Lebanese Muslims and the Arab nations.

I need to mend my fences with the Arab countries, especially with Saudi Arabia, so that Lebanon can once again play its central role in the economy of the Middle East.

The main Druze militiamen came from the Progressive Socialist Party, led by Walid Jumblatt, in alliance with the Syrian Army and Palestinian militants who had not departed Lebanon in 1982.

[14] On 12 March 1985, Samir Geagea, Elie Hobeika and Karim Pakradouni rebelled against Abou Nader's command, ostensibly to take the Lebanese Forces back to its original path and away from Amin Gemayel’s control.

[15] Commander in Chief at the time, Fouad Abou Nader, would agree to step down and give up his leadership to join the rebellion against President Gemayel and avoid violence between Christians.

Claiming that the Tripartite Accord gave Syria unlimited power in Lebanon, Geagea mobilized factions inside the Lebanese Forces and on 15 January 1986, attacked Hobeika's headquarters in Karantina.

Geagea initially supported Aoun's "Liberation War" against the Syrian army, but then agreed to the Taif Agreement, which was signed by the Lebanese deputies on 24 October 1989 in Saudi Arabia and demanded an immediate ceasefire.

On 1 April 1990, following an agreement between Geagea and Hrawi, General Elie Hayek (who had been appointed commander of the Mount Lebanon governorate two weeks prior)[19] was mandated by the executive to begin the transfer of military and political administrations in the Christian enclave from the LF to the West Beirut government.

[21] To further demonstrate his commitment to Taif and willingness to extend civilian administration in "Marounistan", Geagea placed Hayek's bureau at the LF HQ in Jounieh.

On 30 April 1991 – final date imposed by the government for the total surrender of weapons and heavy artillery – all LF areas were ceded to the army command for the first time since 1975.

[23] On 21 April 1994, Geagea was arrested on charges of setting a bomb in a church at Zouk Mikael, of instigating acts of violence, and of committing assassinations during the Lebanese Civil War.

Although he was acquitted of the first charge, Geagea was subsequently arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment on several different counts, including the assassination of former Prime Minister Rashid Karami in 1987.

By the early 1980s, the LF command had built up a force of some 15,000 well-armed militiamen, and claimed that they could mobilize a total Christian army of 40,000, complete with Israeli-supplied tanks and artillery.

[26] LF ground forces' strength by the late 1980s peaked at 14,500 full-time regulars (although other sources list a slightly higher number, about 15,000)[27] and 30,000 part-time reservists, totalling 44,500 men and women equipped with an impressive though disparate arsenal of 100 tanks, 200 APCs and 150 artillery pieces of various types.

The LF was structured along conventional lines, comprising several branches of service and support units, most of them inherited from the old Kataeb Regulatory Forces.

Lebanese Forces's militiamen were provided with a variety of small-arms, comprising M1 Garand (or its Italian-produced copy, the Beretta Model 1952)[47] and SKS[48] semi-automatic rifles, plus MAT-49,[49] Škorpion vz.

Several models of assault rifles were employed, such as M16A1,[51][30][48] FN FAL[48] (variants included the Israeli-produced 'lightened' ROMAT), Heckler & Koch G3,[52][48] Vz.

58, AK-47 and AKM[48] (other variants included the Zastava M70, Chinese Type 56, Romanian Pistol Mitralieră model 1963/1965, Bulgarian AKK/AKKS and former East German MPi-KMS-72 assault rifles).

[83] Following the PLO's withdrawal from west Beirut in October 1982, the LF salvaged seven UR-416 armoured cars left behind by the departing Palestinian forces, from which one vehicle was later captured by the Popular Nasserist Organization (PNO) militia during the battle for the Sidon bridgehead in 1985.

[84] The collapse of the Lebanese Army's 4th Infantry Brigade in February 1984 allowed the LF to make up for their own losses incurred in the 1983–84 Mountain War by seizing seven M48A5 MBTs,[85][86][87][88] five AMX-13 light tanks,[85] twelve Panhard AML-90 armoured cars,[85][89] and some M113 APCs.

[90] Later in the war, sixty-four T-54A, T-55A[91][92][93][94][95] and T-62 tanks, along with fifty M113 APCs modified as mortar carriers (captured from the Islamic Republic of Iran Army during the Iran-Iraq War)[96][97] and eighteen BTR-60PB (8x8) APCs were received from Iraq via Jordan in 1986–89; a few M577 command vehicles, AMX-VCI[73] and Panhard M3 VTT armoured personnel carriers were also seized from the Lebanese Army in 1990.

[citation needed] Besides tracked and wheeled AFVs, the LF also relied on a wide range of softskin, all-terrain military and 'militarized' civilian vehicles for both troop and supply transport.

Like many other Lebanese militias, the LF continued to field a sizable force of gun trucks and technicals armed with Heavy Machine-guns, recoilless rifles, Anti-Aircraft autocannons, anti-tank rockets and light MBRLs.

[69] The LF also employed Chinese Type 63 107 mm towed MBRLs captured from the PLO in 1982 (with some being re-installed on the rear tray of South Korean Keohwa M-5GA1 Jeeps, Israeli-made 'Nun-Nun' Command cars, and on turretless T-54 tanks)[103][65][121] as well as Iraqi-supplied Romanian APR-40/Yugoslav RO-40 128mm systems mounted on DAC-665T (6x6) trucks.

It is not clear if any of the Gazelles were actually delivered by the Iraqis prior to the end of the civil war in October 1990, although it has been reported that the LF illegally sold three helicopters of this same type to Serbia in 1991.