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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Lebanon
Index
The commander of the Lebanese Army in July 1987 was Major
General Michel Awn, who was appointed in June 1984 after long
negotiations in the national unity government of Prime Minister
Rashid Karami. Awn, a Christian, was a career military officer who
entered the military academy at Al Fayadiyyah in 1955 and graduated
as a lieutenant in the artillery corps. He attended advanced
courses in France and the United States and was promoted to
commander of the artillery corps in 1976 during the Lebanese Civil
War. Although the majority of Christian officers supported the
Christian militia, Awn stayed aloof from factional politics during
the Civil War and earned a reputation for neutrality and loyalty to
the government. During the war, he was appointed to a military
committee charged with rebuilding the army. Awn strongly advocated
the need for an integrated, nonsectarian army. In 1977 he assembled
a group of army officers and soldiers from different religious
groups who had not participated in the sectarian fighting and
founded the Eighth Brigade, which, under his command, suffered few
defections.
In rising to the position of commander in chief, Awn succeeded
his old rival, Major General Tannus. Tannus's resignation was
demanded by Muslim politicians who believed him responsible for
bombing Muslim areas while leaving Christian areas unscathed.
Unlike Awn, Tannus had also favored the creation of four separate
sectarian armies--Christian, Sunni, Shia, and Druze.
In 1987 the Lebanese Army consisted of 9 brigades containing a
total of approximately 35,000 to 38,000 men, of whom only 15,000 to
18,000 were under the operational control of the central command
structure. Many units existed only on paper, however, and soldiers
who received paychecks were often in the service of the militias
the army was intended to supplant. Under an informal agreement
between the army and its renegade commanders, the ghost payroll was
maintained to pump funds into Lebanon's war-torn economy.
Additionally, the central government harbored hopes that the
breakaway brigades eventually could be reunited with the official
Lebanese Army.
Lebanon's governmental expenditures on its armed forces were
estimated to be US$328 million annually and its expenditure on
military matériel imports US$240 million in 1983, the most recent
year for which statistics were available in late 1987. In addition,
a 10-year US$955 million supplemental sum earmarked for rebuilding
the armed forces was authorized in 1982, but the program was
shelved when the army collapsed in 1984. Army equipment included 60
AMX-13 tanks, 137 M-48 tanks, 18 M-41 tanks, 100 Saladin armored
cars, several hundred M-113 armored personnel carriers, an array of
Western-supplied artillery, rocket launchers, antiaircraft
artillery, and small arms.
Data as of December 1987
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