Knights of Ali

The 'Knights of Ali' (Arabic: فتيان علي | Fityan Ali), also known as the 'Youth of Ali', were a small Shia political movement and militia that used to operate at West Beirut, being a member of the Lebanese National Movement (LNM) during the 1975–77 phase of the Lebanese Civil War.

Knights of Ali
فتيان علي
LeadersSalaheddine Khalil, Ahmad Safwan
Dates of operation1967–1976
Group(s)Lebanese National Movement
HeadquartersTyre (Tyre District), Naba'a (Beirut)
IdeologyAnti-imperialism
Shia majority interests
Secularism
Size400 fighters
AlliesLebanon Lebanese National Movement
Lebanese Arab Army (LAA)
Amal Movement
Palestine Liberation Organization Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
Kurdish Democratic Party – Lebanon (KDP-L)
Syria Syrian Army
Opponents Lebanese Front
Lebanon Lebanese Army
Lebanon Internal Security Forces (ISF)
Army of Free Lebanon (AFL)
Amal Movement
/ Progressive Socialist Party/Popular Liberation Forces (PLF)
Syria Syrian Army
Battles and warsLebanese Civil War (1975–1990)

History

The group was first established in 1967 by Salaheddine Khalil at the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre, but was temporarily disbanded in 1973. That same year, Khalil was replaced by Ahmad Safwan who reestablished the movement, which operated mainly in the Shia-majority neighborhood of Naba'a in Beirut.

Lebanese Civil War, 1975–1976

When the civil war began in April 1975, the movement, now based in Naba'a, transformed itself into a 400-strong militia to counter the right-wing Christian Lebanese Front militias, and took part in the fighting at Sin el Fil and Sad el-Bauchrieh.[1]

According to journalist Robert Fisk, some Christians allegedly accused the 'Knights of Ali' of the Black Thursday massacre, where more than 50 Christians were massacred in retaliation for the murder of a palestinian man in West Beirut and mutilated, whose severed genitalia were placed in their mouths and whose bodies were dumped in a Muslim cemetery at the mainly Muslim Beirut district of Bashoura, close to the Green Line separating East and West Beirut.[2][3][4] The 'Knights of Ali' claimed to stand for the Shi'ite Movement of the Deprived which was headed by Imam Musa al-Sadr, but he was quick to dissociate his Movement from this atrocity.[5]

The 'Knights of Ali' became void after the fall of Naba'a on 6 August 1976, and they were disbanded later that year by Ahmad Safwan after being subjected to an assassination attempt by the Druze Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) Popular Liberation Forces (PLF) militia.[6]

See also

Notes
  1. "خمسة أحزاب انتهت في الحرب". Almodon. Retrieved 13 April 2017.
  2. Johnson, All honourable men: the social origins of war in Lebanon (2001), p. 11.
  3. "Black Thursday". Civil Society Knowledge Centre. 2014-07-25. Archived from the original on 2019-02-12. Retrieved 2022-06-22.
  4. "Lebanon's Legacy of Political Violence: A Mapping of Serious Violations of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lebanon, 1975–2008" (PDF). International Center for Transitional Justice. September 2013.
  5. Salibi, Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon 1958-1976 (2005), p. 104.
  6. "خمسة أحزاب انتهت في الحرب". Almodon. Retrieved 13 April 2017.

References
  • Kamal Suleiman Salibi, Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon 1958-1976, Caravan Books Inc., New York 2005 (3rd edition). ISBN 978-0882060101
  • Michael Johnson, All honourable men: the social origins of war in Lebanon, Centre for Lebanese Studies, Oxford and London, Oxford University and I.B. Tauris, 2001. ISBN 978-1860647154, 1860647154
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