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 by a qualified, Libyan- and Soviet-trained Officer corps; other Druze officer cadets received their instruction in a PSP-run Military School set up at the town of Debbiyeh, also in the Chouf. The PLA absorbed many Druze soldiers which had served with the Lebanese Arab Army (LAA) upon its forceful disbandment in 1977-78, being subsequently enlarged in the wake of the Mountain War with the inclusion of a number of Druze officers, NCOs and enlisted men from the Lebanese Army's Fourth Brigade after its disintegration in February 1984. During that conflict, the PLA also received the active support of the 1,800 men-strong, primarily Druze Eleventh Brigade commanded by Colonel Amin Qadi, stationed at Hammana and Beiteddine. Although its membership and command structure was predominantly Druze, the PLA did included a number of Sunnis and Shi'ites in their ranks; most Druze recruits continued to come from the Mountain and, until the return of the Syrian Army in 1987, from the Sanayeh (Kantari) and the seafront quarters of West Beirut.