Palestinian Liberation Army
| Palestine Liberation Army | |
|---|---|
| Participant in Battle of Karameh, Lebanese civil war, Syrian civil war | |
PLA Emblem
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| Active | 1964-present |
| Groups | Popular Liberation Forces 329 Commando Battallion (Egypt) Battalion 411 (Syria) Battallion 421 (Iraq) |
| Leaders |
Wajih al-Madani Mohammad Tareq al-Khadraa |
| Strength | 4,500 fighters |
| Allies |
 As-Sa'iqa PFLP-GC Fatah al-Intifada Syrian Army Russian Armed Forces
|
| Opponents |
 Israel Defense Forces Free Syrian Army Al-Nusra Front Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
|
| Battles and wars | |
The Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) was ostensibly set up as the military wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) at the 1964 Arab League summit held in Alexandria, Egypt, with the mission of fighting Israel. However, it has never been under effective PLO control, but rather it has been controlled by its various host governments, usually Syria.
Immediately after its creation at the 1964 Arab League summit in Alexandria, the PLO (then headed by Ahmad Shukeiri) was effectively under the control of the Arab states, especially Nasser's Egypt. The Palestinians would not gain independent control of the organization until Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction wrested it from Nasser-backed Palestinians in 1968-69, when the Arab states were discredited by losing the Six-Day War, and militant Palestinian organizations were rapidly gaining in importance.
The PLA was originally organized into three brigades, named after historic battles:
These brigades were staffed by Palestinian refugees under the control of the host countries, who would perform their military service in these units instead of in their host countries' regular armed forces. Formally, the PLA was under the command of the PLO's Military Department, but in practice, none of the governments involved relinquished control of the brigades.
At its largest, the PLA comprised eight brigades with a total of some 12,000 uniformed soldiers. They were equipped with small-arms, mortars, rocket launchers, wheeled BTR-152 armored personnel carriers and T-34/85 tanks. However, the PLA was never deployed in the form of a single fighting unit for the PLO, but instead battalion-size elements were utilized as an auxiliary force by its controller governments.
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Wikipedia