The War of Brothers (; Harb al-Ikhwa) was a period of violent armed clashes between rivals Amal and Hezbollah, Lebanon's main Shiite militia movements, during the final stages of the Lebanese Civil War. The fighting broke out in April 1988 and proceeded intermittently in three phases over the following years until the signing of an agreement brokered by their respective foreign backers, Syria and Iran, in November 1990.
The Amal Movement was formed in 1974 as the armed wing of popular Shiite cleric Musa al-Sadr's Movement of the Dispossessed. Amal supported the intervening Syrian army against the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Hezbollah, on the other hand, which began as an umbrella organization consisting of more conservative elements of Lebanon's Shiite community, was born in 1982 in reaction to Israel's invasion and occupation of South Lebanon. As the Amal-initiated "War of the Camps" against the PLO ended, Hezbollah and its rival Amal began clashing in South Lebanon and in Beirut's southern suburbs.
Background
The French mandate in Lebanon was carved out of Greater Syria in 1920, aiming to provide Mount Lebanon's Maronite Christians the basis for an independent state of their own. But due to the Christians' limited geographic distribution, the mandate was granted the Shiites' lands as well, which only contributed to the latter's second-class citizenship status. The situation gradually ameliorated over the years, however, as the Shiites were officially recognized as a sect and granted the right to celebrate Ashura.
As the economic situation began to improve in the 1950s, the Shiites, many of whom had relocated to urban areas, started seeking political representation. Musa al-Sadr, an Iranian-Lebanese cleric who arrived in Lebanon in 1959 to occupy the position of Tyre's leading imam, sought to further his community's interests by promoting and strengthening a certain 'Shiite identity' that is consistent with the broader Lebanese identity. Before Sadr's founding of the Movement of the Dispossessed (Harakat al-Mahrumin) in 1974 and the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council before it, the Shiites, who long felt disenfranchised in the political spectrum, tended to join ranks with a variety of available sociopolitical movements, among which were the Lebanese Communist Party, as well as Nasserist, Ba'athist and even Palestinian movements. The Movement of the Dispossessed became increasingly popular among the middle class Shiites and Lebanese returnees from West Africa, as well as some progressive elements within the influential za'im system. Sadr's promotion of the idea of social solidarity among Shiites which, coupled with the narrative of "resistance" to Israel, were particularly appealing to his community and contributed to the growth of his movement.