Lebanese Forces – Executive Command

The LFU was formed by Hobeika at Zahlé out of his LF supporters, who sought refuge in the Syrian-controlled Beqaa after being ousted from east Beirut in January 1986 by the Lebanese Forces' faction led by Samir Geagea.{{cite news|last=Hassan|first=Maher|title=Politics and war of Elie Hobeika|url=http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/politics-and-war-elie-hobeika|accessdate=29 December 2012|newspaper=Egypt Independent|date=24 January 2010}}{{cite news|title=Elie Hobeika|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1382591/Elie-Hobeika.html|accessdate=29 December 2012|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=25 January 2002}} Renamed Lebanese Forces – Executive Command later that year and financed by Syria, Hobeika and its men conveyed little or no support at all from the Greek-Catholic citizens of Zahlé, who preferred to lend their backing to the mainstream Lebanese Forces and later, to General Michel Aoun's interim military government.

Initially numbering just 600-700 fighters,Makdisi and Sadaka, The Lebanese Civil War, 1975-1990 (2003), p. 44, Table 1: War Period Militias. the LFEC by the late 1980s aligned some 1,000 militiamen (although another source points a higher number, about 2,000),{{cite journal|last=Nassif|first=Daniel|title=Major General Ghazi Kanaan|journal=Middle East Intelligence Bulletin|date=January 2000|volume=2|issue=1|url=http://www.meforum.org/meib/articles/0001_l5.htm|access-date=7 July 2012}} mostly Maronites, of which 300 operated in West Beirut whilst the remainder were kept in reserve at Zahlé. Apart from a few technicals armed with heavy machine-guns, recoilless rifles and anti-aircraft autocannons, the militia had no armoured vehicles nor artillery of their own but usually relied on the Syrian Army's 82nd Armoured Brigade stationed at the Beqaa for armour and artillery support.

• Elie Hobeika
• Georges Melko
• Maroun Machahalani
• Michel Zouen

Generally regarded as a pro-Syrian proxy faction, the LFEC became known for their lack of restraint and discipline, and involvement in profitable criminal activities – besides allowing his men to abduct and rape many of the local women, Hobeika ran from his Headquarters at the Qadiri Hotel in central Zahlé an illegal international telecommunications' center and a drug-trafficking ring that extended through the Beqaa Valley.Traboulsi, Identités et solidarités croisées dans les conflits du Liban contemporain; Chapitre 12: L'économie politique des milices: le phénomène mafieux (2007), parte III.

The group is suspected of being implicated in a series of bloody bomb attacks in the mid-1980s, namely the failed attempt made alongside the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the pro-Israeli South Lebanon Army (SLA) to assassinate Sheikh Hussein Fadlallah of Hezbollah, which cost the life of his brother Jihad Fadlallah in March 1985 by a massive car-bomb explosion that also caused other 83 dead and 256 wounded.O'Ballance, Civil War in Lebanon (1998), p. 155.Palmer Harik, Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism (2004), p. 37.Qassem, Hizbullah: The Story from Within (2005), p. 99.{{cite journal|last=Gambill|first=Gary C.|author2=Bassam Endrawos|title=The Assassination of Elie Hobeika|journal=Middle East Intelligence Bulletin|date=January 2002|volume=4|issue=1|url=http://www.meforum.org/meib/articles/0201_l1.htm|accessdate=15 June 2012}} The subsequent car-bomb campaign that plagued both West and East Beirut from March to July 1986 was allegedly carried out by the LFEC in collusion with the Syrian military intelligence services.

During the 1989–1990 Liberation War they fought alongside Druze

Progressive Socialist Party's People's Liberation Army (PSP/PLA) and pro-Syrian Palestinian National Salvation Front (PNSF) militias against General Michel Aoun's troops at the second battle of Souk El Gharb.Micheletti and Debay, Victoire a Souk El Gharb – la 10e Brigade sauve le Liban, RAIDS magazine (1989), pp. 18-24.Barak, The Lebanese Army – A National institution in a divided society (2009), p. 159. They later assisted Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) militiamen and Syrian troops in the capture of Aoun's HQ at Baabda on October 13, 1990, where they fought successfully the Aounist 5th Infantry Brigade defending it, and reportedly committed atrocities and engaged in looting.{{cite news|last=Hassan|first=Maher|title=Politics and war of Elie Hobeika|url=http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/politics-and-war-elie-hobeika|accessdate=29 December 2012|newspaper=Egypt Independent|date=24 January 2010}}{{cite news|title=Elie Hobeika|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1382591/Elie-Hobeika.html|accessdate=29 December 2012|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=25 January 2002}}

Upon the end of the war in October 1990, LFEC militia units operating in Beirut and Zahlé 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.Barak, The Lebanese Army – A National institution in a divided society (2009), p. 173. Although the LFEC was indeed disbanded, many of its former members went to provide the cadre for a private security company set up and headed by Hobeika until his death by a mysterious car bomb explosion near his house in the east Beirut suburb of Hazmiyeh on January 24, 2002.[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jan/25/israelandthepalestinians.lebanon Mostyn, Trevor, The Guardian, 25 January 2002]{{cite web|title=Elie Hobeika Assassinated |url=http://www.lebaneseforces.com/hobeika.asp |publisher=Lebanese Forces |accessdate=15 June 2012 |url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120626032323/http://www.lebaneseforces.com/hobeika.asp |archivedate=26 June 2012 }}{{cite news|last=MacFarquhar|first=Neil|title=Car Bomb Kills Figure in 1982 Lebanese Massacre|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/25/world/car-bomb-kills-figure-in-1982-lebanese-massacre.html|accessdate=7 July 2012|newspaper=The New York Times|date=25 January 2002}} The LFEC is no longer active.

• Elie Hobeika
• Promise Party
• Lebanese Forces
• Lebanese Civil War
• List of weapons of the Lebanese Civil War
• January 1986 Lebanese Forces coup
• Tyous Team of Commandos
• Michel Murr
• Young Men (Lebanon)
• Zahliote Group
• 5th Infantry Brigade (Lebanon)
• 9th Infantry Brigade (Lebanon)
• 10th Infantry Brigade (Lebanon)

{{reflist|30em}}

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• Denise Ammoun, Histoire du Liban contemporain: Tome 2 1943–1990, Fayard, Paris 2005. {{ISBN|978-2-213-61521-9}} (in French) – [https://books.google.com/books?id=aGHk5M0CGcoC&pg=PT234]
• Edgar O'Ballance, Civil War in Lebanon, 1975-92, Palgrave Macmillan, London 1998. {{ISBN|0-333-72975-7}}
• Éric Micheletti and Yves Debay, Liban – dix jours aux cœur des combats, RAIDS magazine n.º41, October 1989 issue. {{ISSN|0769-4814}} (in French)
• Fawwaz Traboulsi, Identités et solidarités croisées dans les conflits du Liban contemporain; Chapitre 12: L'économie politique des milices: le phénomène mafieux, Thèse de Doctorat d'Histoire – 1993, Université de Paris VIII, 2007. (in French) – [http://www.111101.net/Writings/Author/Fawwaz_Traboulsi/]
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• Naim Qassem, Hizbullah: The Story from Within, Saqi Books, London 2005. {{ISBN|9780863566998}}
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• Judith Palmer Harik, Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism, I.B. Tauris, London 2004. {{ISBN|978-1860648939}}
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• Tom Najem and Roy C. Amore, Historical Dictionary of Lebanon, Second Edition, Historical Dictionaries of Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, Boulder, New York & London 2021. {{ISBN|9781538120439}}, 1538120437

{{refend}}

{{refbegin|30em}}

• Samer Kassis, 30 Years of Military Vehicles in Lebanon, Beirut: Elite Group, 2003. {{ISBN|9953-0-0705-5}}
• William W. Harris, Faces of Lebanon: Sects, Wars, and Global Extensions, Princeton Series on the Middle East, Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton 1997. {{ISBN|978-1558761155}}, 1-55876-115-2

{{refend}}

• [http://armeelibanaise.kazeo.com/ Histoire militaire de l'armée libanaise de 1975 à 1990] (in French)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lebanese Forces - Executive Command}}

Category:Israeli–Lebanese conflict

Category:Lebanese National Resistance Front

Category:Factions in the Lebanese Civil War