[1] The Al-Marada's military wing was secretly formed in 1967 and at the outbreak of the war in April 1975, its fighters numbered just 700–800 men armed with obsolete firearms acquired on the black market.
[2] They first came to light on 17 August 1970 at Beirut, when Tony Frangieh forced his way into the Parliament House leading a group of armed militiamen in order to secure his father's election to the Presidency – an illegal move that the Lebanese official authorities proved powerless to prevent.
Heavier Browning M2HB .50 Cal, DShKM, Type 77 and NSV (or its Yugoslav variant, the Zastava M87) machine guns were employed as platoon and company weapons, but could also be found mounted on APCs and technicals.
Yugoslav Zastava M55 20mm, Soviet ZPU (ZPU-1, ZPU-2, ZPU-4) 14.5mm,[20] and ZU-23-2 23mm AA autocannons (mostly mounted on technicals and heavier transport trucks) were employed in both air defense and direct fire support roles.
They also maintained a small 'naval' branch equipped with some Zodiac rubber inflatable boats and converted civilian fishing craft armed with heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft autocannons, being used as a shock force for both military and barratry operations.
The Frangieh clan established in 1978 their own fief in the northern Lebanon, the so-called 'Northern Canton', which comprised the districts of Tripoli, Koura, Zgharta, Bsharri and parts of Batroun.
The Canton was run by the Al-Marada's own civil administration of 80 public servants, who were also entrusted of running the militia's own television and radio service, "The Voice of the Marada" (Arabic: عزة صوت المرادة | Iza'at Sawt al-Marada) or "La Voix des Maradah" in French, by hijacking the television and radio signals emitted by the government-owned station at (location unknown), sending pirate broadcasts.
[22] The small ZLA entered the civil war only in July 1975, in response to a series of attacks in the Sunni Muslim-dominated northern port city of Tripoli on shops and offices owned by Christians from Zgharta by local Muslim militias.
[26][27] Despite having joined in January 1976 the Lebanese Front alliance that gathered the main rightist Christian parties and their militias, the Frangiehs close ties to Syria (Suleiman was a personal friend of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad), along with their bitter political squabbling with the Gemayel clan – leaders of the Kataeb Party or 'Phalange' – and their disagreements with the other Christian leaders over their tactical alliance with Israel, prompted them to break from the Lebanese Front in 1977, an act that would ultimately led to the tragic events of the following year.
It was also alleged that they received the tacit backing from a contingent of unspecified number from the 1,700 men-strong Lebanese Army's Seventh Brigade stationed at Byblos, being regarded as loyal to former president Suleiman Frangieh.
[43] The ZLA/Marada militia destroyed the residence of Greek Orthodox MP Fouad Ghosn at the town of Kousba, Koura district in retaliation after he voted for Bachir Gemayel during the 1982 Lebanese presidential election.
[45] Upon the end of the war in October 1990, Al-Marada/ZLA militia forces operating in Beirut and the 'Northern Canton' were ordered by the Lebanese Government on March 28, 1991 to disband and surrender their heavy weaponry by April 30 as stipulated by the Taif Agreement.