The 4th Infantry Brigade (Lebanon) was a Lebanese Army unit that fought in the Lebanese Civil War, being active from its creation in January 1983 until its destruction in September that year, in the wake of the Mountain War.
Origins
In the aftermath of the June–September 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, President Amin Gemayel, convinced that a strong and unified national defense force was a prerequisite to rebuilding the nation, announced plans to raise a 60,000-man army organized into twelve brigades (created from existing infantry regiments), trained and equipped by France and the United States. In late 1982, the 4th Infantry Regiment was therefore re-organized and expanded to a brigade group numbering 2,000 men, most of whom were Maronite Christians from the Mount Lebanon region and Druzes from the Chouf District, which became in January 1983 the 4th Infantry Brigade.
Emblem
Structure and organization
The new unit grew from an understrength battalion comprising three rifle companies to a fully equipped mechanized infantry brigade, capable of aligning a Headquarters' (HQ) battalion, an armoured battalion equipped with Staghound armoured cars, (soon replaced by Panhard AML-90 armoured cars), AMX-13 light tanks and thirty M48A5 main battle tanks (MBTs), three mechanized infantry battalions (41st, 42nd and 43rd) issued with fifty M113 and AMX-VCI armored personnel carriers (APC), plus an artillery battalion (45th) fielding US M101A1 105mm towed field howitzers and FH-70 155mm Howitzers. The Brigade also fielded a logistics battalion, equipped with 250 soft-skin vehicles of various types, which consisted of US M151A1 jeeps, Land-Rover long wheelbase series III, Jeep Gladiator J20, M880/M890 Series CUCV, Chevrolet C20 and Dodge Ram (1st generation) pickups, plus US M35A2 2½-ton (6x6) military trucks. Headquartered in the Mount Lebanon region, the Brigade was initially commanded by Colonel Jurj Haruq, later replaced by Col. Nayef Kallas.
Combat history
The Lebanese Civil War
In early September 1983, under the command of Colonel Nayef Kallas, Fourth Brigade's units were deployed at the towns of Khalde, Aramoun, Kabr Chmoun and Shahhar – where they relieved the Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) militia garrisons that had repulsed the first wave of ground assaults by the Druze People's Liberation Army (PLA) militia led by Walid Jumblatt and were running out of supplies – in the Chouf District, being entrusted with the mission of defending the southern approaches of Beirut. Like their colleagues of the Eighth Brigade led by Colonel Michel Aoun at Souk El Gharb, the Fourth Brigade bore the brunt of the Druze PLA attacks for three days, until it began to show signs of a confessional split in the ranks, since its Druze soldiers were reluctant to fight their coreligionists.
On February 13, 1984, a Shi'ite Amal Movement force succeeded in driving out other Lebanese Army units from their positions in the southern approaches to west Beirut, seizing Khalde (with the exception of the adjoining International Airport, still being held by the U.S. Marines' contingent of the Multinational Force in Lebanon), tightening the noose around the beleaguered Fourth Brigade. Lebanese Air Force Hawker Hunter jets flew their last combat sortie over the Chouf, carrying out air strikes against advancing Druze PLA forces on the western portion of the Shahhar region in support of the Fourth Brigade's units reinforced by the 101st Ranger Battalion from the 10th Airmobile Brigade fighting desperately to retain their positions at Aabey, Kfar Matta, Ain Ksour, and Al-Bennay, which achieved little success due to poor planning and lack of coordination with Lebanese Army units fighting on the ground. This situation was exacerbated by the fact that Lebanese National Salvation Front (LNSF) militias managed to intercept, alter, and retransmit Lebanese Army radio communications, which allowed them to impersonate the LAF command in east Beirut by ordering Fourth Brigade units to retreat to safer positions. Simultaneously, they ordered Lebanese Army's artillery units positioned at east Beirut to shell their own troops' positions in the western Chouf, which wreaked havoc among Fourth Brigade units and forced them to fall back in disorder towards the coast while being subjected to friendly fire.