June 1, 1976 · Northern and Eastern Lebanon Theater
June 1, 1976
In June 1976, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad sent some 40,000 troops and 800 tanks into Lebanon under the banner of an Arab Deterrent Force, ostensibly to restore order. Assad's intervention was strategically paradoxical: he intervened against the Lebanese National Movement and PLO — nominally his allies — to prevent their total victory, which he feared would provoke a devastating Israeli response and destabilize his own border region.
Commanders