It was first founded unofficially by the Party's president, the za'im (political boss) Kamal Jumblatt at the height of the 1958 Civil War with a strength of about 1,000–2,000 militiamen, which fought alongside the Pan-Arab/leftist anti-government forces against the Lebanese Army, and the pro-government conservative Christian and Muslim militias in Beirut and the Chouf District.

[6] Eventually, the group of 185 highly trained fighters that graduated from the course in 1974 with excellent military skills and tactics went to provide the founding cadre for the PSP's first unconventional warfare unit, which was given the title Popular Commandos Forces – PCF (Arabic: قوات الكوماندوز الشعبية | Quwwat al-Kumanduz al-Sha'abya).

[7][5] Under Kamal Jumblatt's leadership, the PSP was a major element in the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) alliance, which supported the recognition of Lebanon's Arab identity and sympathised with the Palestinians.

When the Lebanese Civil War broke out in April 1975, as a member of the LNM the PSP and its small PCF militia were active founders of the movement's military wing, the Joint Forces (LNM-JF).

[4] The name 'Tanukh' clearly indicated Kamal Jumblatt's wish to link his current political venture to that of the early Druze Tanukhid settlers tasked with defending the Lebanese coast against foreign invasions during the Crusades.

[10] The PLF continued to expand and by early 1977, it mustered 2,500–3,000 lightly armed fighters drawn from the Druze and Shia Muslim communities of the Chouf,[11][12][13][14] although other sources place its numbers as high as 5,000.

On a military level both the Soviets and the Syrians took the PSP under their wing and gradually transformed its PLF militia into a proper army, with modern training and unrestricted access to weaponry when needed.

[9] All these developments allowed Walid Joumblatt to finally declare on 1 June 1978 the founding of the People's Liberation Army – Forces of the Martyr Kamal Jumblatt (PLA – FMKL).

Many of these selected commanders had formal military training, being former Lebanese Army officers who had joined the Druze PSP militia when the LAF split under confessional lines in January 1976.

[17] After suffering casualties during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon of June 1982, the PLA was quietly re-organized late that year by Walid Jumblatt, who turned it into a disciplined fighting force provided with Soviet-made armoured vehicles and artillery.

Headquartered at the Druze town of Baakline in the Chouf, the PSP militia by 1983 aligned 16,000–17,000 troops, consisting of 5,000–6,000 uniformed regulars backed by 12,000 male and female reservists, staffed and led by a qualified, professionally-trained Officer corps.

During the heavy clashes occurred in September 1983 in the Chouf district, the Druze village-based reserve companies and the PLA's regular battalions proved able to coordinate their activities, holding successfully their ground against both the Lebanese Army and the Christian LF militia.

Upon the conclusion of their instruction cycle, they were provided by the Libyans with a considerable haul of Soviet-made heavy weapons, including tanks, tracked and wheeled APCs, MBRLs, and SPAAGs, before returning to Lebanon by ship to the PSP-controlled port of Jieh in the Iqlim al-Kharrub coastal enclave.

[4] PLA armored, "Commando", infantry, and artillery units were organized into independent formations deployed to a specific area of military operations or "Sector" (Arabic: Qitay), seven of which were formed upon the establishment of the Popular Liberation Forces (PLF) in August 1976, and doubled as Regional Commands.

[31] By February 1984, the PLA aligned eight such "Brigades" that fielded eight "Commando" companies and eight assorted infantry companies, and eight Military Police "Brigades", with their respective "Sectors" being organized as follows:[1] In 1983-84, Walid Jumblatt reestructed the PLA along conventional lines, comprising several branches of service and support units, organized into seven (subsequently augmented to nine) brigade-sized formations termed "Corps" (Arabic: Silah),[7] whilst its branches and specialized technical services consisted of: Besides Palestinian and Syrian backing, the collapse of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and Internal Security Forces (ISF) in January 1976 allowed the PSP/PLA to seize some weapons and vehicles from their barracks and police stations,[52] though they received further military assistance from Libya, Iraq, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and the USSR.

The PLA's armoured units were further strengthened between 1983 and 1987 with the arrival of some 74 T-55A MBTs,[112][113][114][115] BTR-152V1,[116][117][118] BTR-60PB,[116][119][120] and BMP-1[116][121][122] APCs and two ZSU-23-4M1 Shilka SPAAGs[123] supplied on loan by the DPFLP,[40] Syria, Libya, and the USSR;[124] a few M3/M9 Zahlam half-tracks were captured from the Lebanese Forces in 1983.

This particular helicopter appears to have never been used in combat by the PLA (since they had no aviation component, and therefore lacked the technically proficient personnel to help fly and maintain the captured airframe), which ended up being simply placed on storage at Hammana under the custody of the Druze 11th Infantry Brigade for the remainder of the Civil War.

Additional revenues were generated by leaving tolls on the transit trade of agricultural products and other goods at a number of in-land PLA road checkpoints, whilst the expatriated Druze community in the United States provided financial support.

[157][158][159] Historically, the Druze in Lebanon managed to maintain for centuries a small, hardy community in the Chouf Mountains overlooking Beirut surrounded by a sea of potential enemies, both Christian and Muslim, and they have a reputation of being savage fighters known for their tenacious battle spirit.

On 16 March 1977, the PSP leader Kamal Jumblatt was ambushed and killed in his car near Baakline in the Chouf by unidentified gunmen (allegedly, fighters from the pro-Syrian faction of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party or SSNP, acting in collusion with the Syrian military commander of the Mount Lebanon region, Colonel Ibrahim Houeijy);[162][163][164][165][166] believing that the perpetrators were members of the predominately Christian Phalangist Kataeb Regulatory Forces (KRF) or Tigers Militias, PLF militiamen extracted swift retribution on the local Maronite population living in the intermixed towns and villages around Baakline.

Despite the hasty dispatch on 17 March of 4,000 Syrian Army troops from the Arab Deterrent Force (ADF) to keep the peace in the Chouf, it is estimated that about 177–250 Maronite villagers were killed in reprisal actions (known as the Chouf massacres) at the towns of Moukhtara and Barouk, and at the villages of Mazraat el-Chouf, Maaser el-Chouf, Botmeh, Kfar Nabrakh, Fraydis, Machghara, Baadaran, Shurit, Ain Zhalta and Brih (St George's Church attack).

The Lebanese Forces command later accused the Druze PLA of committing "unprecedented massacres" in the Chouf – in order to deny support, cover or a visible community for the LF to protect, the Druze PSP/PLA leadership implemented a territorial cleansing policy to drain the Christian population from the region,[172][173] during which Walid Jumblatt's militia forces overran between 31 August and 13 September 1983 sixty-two Maronite villages (including Bmarian, Bireh, Ras el-Matn, Maaser Beit ed-Dine, Chartoun, Ain el-Hour, Bourjayne, Fawara, and Maaser el-Chouf), slaughtered 1,500 people and drove another 50,000 out of their homes in the mountainous areas east and west of Beirut.

[178] In one occasion, on 23 September 1984 PLA fighters attempted to seize two Lebanese Army soldiers posted on sentry duty outside the Barbir Hospital in the Ouza'i district of West Beirut, though the latter managed to escape on foot towards the Army-manned Ojjeh checkpoint situated nearby at the Green Line, despite being pursued by their captors in a civilian car.

[195] When the Coastal War broke out in March–April 1985, the PSP/PLA joined in a Syrian-backed coalition with the Popular Nasserist Organization (PNO), the Al-Mourabitoun and the Shi'ite Amal Movement, which defeated the Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) attempts to establish bridgeheads at Damour and Sidon.

[196] This alliance was short-lived, however, and as soon this battle ended, they joined in May another powerful coalition that gathered Amal and LCP/Popular Guards militia forces backed by Syria,[197] the Lebanese Army,[198] and anti-Arafat dissident Palestinian guerrilla factions pitted against an alliance of pro-Arafat Palestinian refugee camps' PLO militias, the Al-Mourabitoun, the Communist Action Organization in Lebanon (OCAL), the Sixth of February Movement and the Kurdish Democratic Party – Lebanon (KDP-L).

Although the PSP/PLA had stormed and seized the Al-Mourabitoun's radio and television studios in the Mahallat Abu Shaker Party headquarters' offices located near the Gamal Abdel Nasser Mosque in the Corniche El-Mazraa district earlier in March, and helped Amal in defeating the Al-Mourabitoun after a week of heavy fighting,[199] they were reluctant to suppress altogether the PLO and KDP-L militias defending the refugee camps, preferring instead to stay out of the fight and remain militarily neutral in the subsequent conflict.

On 21-22 February, the week of fighting was ended by the arrival in West Beirut of 7,000 Syrian Commando troops under the command of Maj. Gen. Kanaan, assisted by Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) gendarmes, who immediately closed over fifty militia "offices" and banned the carrying of weapons in public, detaining in the process many young men with beards suspected of being militiamen.

Usually, PLA militiamen wore in the field a mix of military uniforms, western civilian clothes and traditional Druze garb,[215] though they were known to have worn a variety of battle dress, depending on whom they allied to and what other armed forces were occupying their territory.

[215][236] A red cloth or plastic brassard of roughly triangular shape and attached to a shoulder strap, bearing the stamped full-colour Progressive Socialist Party crest with the initials "PSP" below in white Latin script, flanked by the inscription of the Sector to which the bearer was assigned to and surmounted by another inscription bearing "People's Liberation Army" in white Arabic script, was worn on the upper left arm (the Tanukh Brigade and Security Police Corps were issued their own versions in plastic).

Steel helmets painted in red, marked with white stripes at the sides and the initials "PSP" were issued to Security Police Corps' troopers assigned patrol duties in urban areas.