Tigers Militia The Tigers Militia ( Arabic : نمور الأحرار , transliterated : " Numūr " or " Al - Noumour " ) , also known as NLP Tigers or Tigers of the Liberals ( Arabic : " Numur al - Ahrar " ) and PNL " Lionceaux " in French , was the military wing of the National Liberal Party ( NLP ) during the Lebanese Civil War . Origins . The NLP militia was first raised in October 1968 by Camille Chamoun at his own home town of Es - Sa ’ adiyat , originally under the title Brigade of the Lebanese Tigers – BLT ( Arabic : " Katibat al - Numur al - Lubnaniyya " ) or Brigade des Lionceaux Libanais ( BLL ) in French , allegedly taken from his middle name , " Nimr " – meaning “ Tiger ” in Arabic . Initially just 500 - men strong , the BLT was organized , trained , and led by the ‘ defence secretary ’ of the NLP Naim Berdkan ; after his death in action in January 1976 , he was succeeded by Dany Chamoun , Camille Chamoun ' s son . Allocated at first in the NLP party offices ’ at the neighborhood of Sodeco in the Achrafieh quarter of Beirut , the Tigers ’ military HQ was relocated in 1978 to Safra , a boat marina and tourist beach resort located 25 km north of the Lebanese capital in the Keserwan District , where it remained until the militia ’ s dissolution . Structure and organization . Under the command of Dany Chamoun , the Tigers had become by 1978 the second largest militia force in the Christian Lebanese Front , well - provided with modern small - arms and bolstered since 1976 by an assortment of ex - Lebanese Army M41 Walker Bulldog and AMX - 13 light tanks , Charioteer tank destroyer s , M42 Duster SPAAG s , M113 and Panhard M3 VTT Armoured personnel carrier s , Staghound armoured car s , Panhard AML - 90 armoured cars , and a fleet of gun - trucks ( M151 jeeps , Land - Rover s , Toyota Land Cruiser s , Peugeot and Chrysler light pickups , and GMC cargo trucks ) fitted with heavy machine guns , recoilless rifles , anti - aircraft autocannons and light MBRL s . Although the Chamouns never achieved with their militia the same level of organizational efficiency displayed by the rival Phalange ' Kataeb Regulatory Forces militia , they were nonetheless capable of aligning 3 , 500 men and women , though other sources list a total of 4 , 000 . Its 500 full - time fighters and 3 , 000 part - time reservists were organized into armoured , ‘ commando ’ , infantry , artillery , signals , medical , logistics and military police branches . Their chain of command was predominantly Maronite , though the rank - and - file were drawn from the Maronite , Greek - Orthodox , Druze , and Shi ’ ite militants of the NLP and trained in - country at clandestine facilities ; first set up by the NLP in 1966 these training centres were located at Naas in the Metn , Es - Saadiyat in the Iqlim al - Kharrub coastal enclave south of Beirut and in Adma at the northern mountainous Keserwan District . The Tigers also received covert support from Jordan and Egypt since 1973 , followed by Israel and Syria in 1976 - 77 , who provided further training as well as additional weapons and heavy equipment , including twenty M50 Super Sherman Tanks , BTR - 152 APCs , field artillery , BM - 12 ( Chinese Type 63 ) 107mm towed MBRLs , and anti - aircraft autocannons . NLP militia units operated mainly in East Beirut , Jbeil and Tripoli in the Metn , Mount Lebanon and Keserwan District s , but also had a presence at Zahlé in the Beqaa valley , at the south in the Iqlim al - Kharrub and the Jabal Amel , where their local militants later played a key part in the formation of the Israeli - backed ' Free Lebanese Militia / Army ' , South Lebanon Army ’ s predecessor . Illegal activities and controversy . Financing for the NLP militia came at first from both Chamoun ’ s personal fortune and from ' protection ' racket s collected in the areas under their control , though they also received outside help . Conservative Arab Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan , together with Egypt and Israel , provided covert funding , weapons , ammunition , training and other non - lethal assistance . Most of it entered towards the illegal port of Dbayeh , set up in early 1976 and run by Joseph Abboud , former personal chauffeur of Camille Chamoun , who carried out drug - smuggling and arms contraband activities at the behalf of the NLP until 1980 , when the Lebanese Forces brought the port under their authority . Ruthless fighters with a reputation of aggressiveness , aggrieved by lack of discipline and restraint , they were involved in the Karantina , al - Masklah and Tel al - Zaatar Massacre s of Palestinian refugee s in East Beirut and Dbayeh , allied with the Army of Free Lebanon , Al - Tanzim , Kataeb Regulatory Forces and the Guardians of the Cedars . Towards the end of the 1970s , however , rivalries within the Lebanese Front coalition strained the relationship between the NLP Tigers ’ militia and their erstwhile Christian allies , leading them to violent confrontation with the Phalangists and the Guardians of the Cedars ( GoC ) . The Tigers ’ even battled these two factions in May 1979 for control of the Fern el - Shebak and Ain el - Rammaneh districts in Beirut , and for the town of Akoura in the Metn . The Tigers in the civil war 1975 - 77 . Upon the outbreak of the civil war in April 1975 , the NLP Tigers immediately engaged the leftist Lebanese National Movement ( LNM ) militias and its Palestinian PLO allies , being heavily committed in several battles in and outside the Beirut area . At the Battle of the Hotels in October 1975 , they supported their Phalangist allies of the Kataeb Regulatory Forces ( KRF ) militia against the Al - Murabitoun and the Nasserite Correctionist Movement ( NCM ) for the control of the Hotels district in centre Beirut . In January 1976 the collapse of the Lebanese Armed Forces ( LAF ) enabled the Tigers to take over Army barracks and depots located at Ashrafieh , Ain el - Rammaneh , Hadath , Baabda , and Hazmiyeh districts of East Beirut , seizing heavy weapons and enrolling defectors into its ranks . The Tigers later joined the allied Christian Lebanese Front militias in the defense of the Mount Lebanon region against the LNM - PLO ‘ Spring Offensive ’ in March 1976 . Backed by the Tyous Team of Commandos they later put a spirited defence of the Achrafieh and Fayadieh districts during the Hundred Days War in February 1978 against the Syrian Army . Reversals and decline 1978 - 1980 . The Tigers ’ involvement in the above mentioned atrocities , however , cost them the loss of the Iqlim al - Kharrub to the LNM - PLO alliance in January 1976 , which they failed to defend despite being backed by ISF units and Lebanese Army ground forces . The fall of this important stronghold was a severe blow to the NLP and the Tigers , depriving them of their main recruiting area along with their local training infrastructure , chiefly the Es - Saadiyat camp , and the port towns of Damour and Jiyeh . To further aggrieve matters , relations between the NLP political board and the Tigers ’ military command soured after the former , headed by Camille Chamoun , supported Syria ’ s military intervention in June that year whereas the latter , led by its son Dany , strongly opposed to it . Fearing that its own party ’ militia was getting out of control , Camille tacitly allowed its Kataeb rivals to absorb the Tigers ’ into the Lebanese Forces ( LF ) under Bachir Gemayel . Dany Chamoun ’ s adamant refusal of allowing the Tigers ’ to be incorporated led the Phalangists to attack its Safra HQ on July 7 , 1980 , which resulted in a bloodbath that claimed up to 500 lives , mostly civilians . While their leader Dany was rushed to exile , first to Syria and then to Europe after handling over the command of the Tigers to his elder brother Dory Chamoun , the militia was officially disbanded on Camille ’ s orders in late August . Soon afterwards , this was followed by the seizure on the part of the Phalangists of nearly all their positions in and outside East Beirut , including the vital Naas and Adma training camps . The remaining 3 , 000 or so militiamen founded themselves being consolidated by the end of October of that year into the Damouri Brigade within the Lebanese Forces . Revival and disbandment 1983 - 1990 . The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 , coupled by the death of the LF supremo Bachir Gemayel in September that year brought the resurgence of the National Liberals into the political scene , though the efforts by Camille Chamoun to revive the Tigers ’ militia in 1983 - 84 proved less successful . The small force of only 100 or so lightly equipped fighters they gathered proved unable to compete with the Lebanese Forces ’ military might , being relegated to the role of a mere bodyguard for the NLP political leaders for the remainder of the war . Upon the end of the civilian strife in October 1990 and the subsequent assassination of Dany Chamoun – who had succeeded his late father at the NLP ’ s presidency in October 1987 – the last remaining National Liberals ’ paramilitary organization was disarmed on orders of the new Lebanese government . The NLP Tigers are no longer active . The Free Tigers . The Free Tigers ( Arabic : " Noumour Al - Horr " ) were originally a 200 - strong or so unit of the NLP Tigers commanded by Elias Hannache , which used to operate in the Hadath and Ain el - Rammaneh sectors of East Beirut until the forcible merger of the Tigers ’ militia into the Lebanese Forces in July 1980 . Backed by Lebanese Army units sent upon request of the NLP president Camille Chamoun , Hannache and its men tried to resist incorporation by staging an anti - LF armed uprising that rocked the south - east districts of the Lebanese capital from August to October 1980 . Defeated after a four - day street battle and forced out of their last remaining strongholds at Ain el - Rammaneh by the LF , Hannache ’ s dissident Tigers fled across the Green Line into the Muslim - controlled western sector of the Capital . There they placed themselves under the protection of the Palestinian Fatah intelligence service before moving to Zahlé in late October , where they merged with the NLP Tigers ’ local cell . In addition to PLO backing , the Free Tigers also received some support from Syria in 1981 , though Hannache seems to have taken sides with the LF Commando force sent to defend Zahlé in that same year , but very little was heard from them afterwards . Legacy . Since 2002 , several former NLP Tiger commanders known for their right - wing , ultra - nationalist leanings rallied in support of General Michel Aoun and went on to occupy various high positions within the Free Patriotic Current hierarchy , ranging from political ( Dr Naji Hayek and Georges Aaraj ) to security ( Jean Eid and Bob Azzam ) .