South Lebanon Army

The South Lebanon Army, also known as the Lahad Army or as the De Facto Forces (DFF), was a Lebanese Christian-dominated rebel paramilitary organization founded by Lebanese military officer Saad Haddad in 1977, during the Lebanese Civil War. Initially formed as a splinter rebel group when it broke away from the Army of Free Lebanon, it evolved to operate as a paramilitary during the South Lebanon conflict, basing itself in Haddad's unrecognized State of Free Lebanon. Officially secular, the army was a multi-confessional force composed of Christians, Druze, and Shia, the latter of whom made up a substantial share of its ranks, estimated at around 30 percent and in some accounts as high as half of its fighters.