Popular Nasserist Organization
|
Popular Nasserist Organization
التنظيم الشعبي الناصري |
|
|---|---|
| Leader | Osama Saad |
| Founder | Maarouf Saad |
| Founded | 1973 |
| Headquarters | Sidon, Lebanon |
| Ideology |
Nasserism, Arab nationalism Pan-Arabism |
| Religion | Predominantly Sunni Islam with some Shi'a Islam and Christianity |
| National affiliation | March 8 Alliance |
| Party flag | |
 |
|
The Popular Nasserist Organization – PNO (Arabic: التنظيم الشعبي الناصري | Al-Tanzim al-Sha'aby al-Nassery) or Organisation Populaire Nassérienne (OPN) in French, is a Sidon-based Nasserist party originally formed in 1973 by Maarouf Saad, a Sunni Muslim Pan-Arab politician and member of Parliament (MP) later killed by the Lebanese Army during a February 1975 dock strike held in that port city.
The PNO's military wing, the National Liberation Army – NLA (Arabic: Jayish al-Tahrir al-Watani) or Armée de Liberation Nationale (ALN) was first raised in March 1975 at Sidon by Mustafa Saad, son of the late Maarouf. Secretly trained and armed by Fatah, the NLA was initially financed by Yasser Arafat's organization and Libya, later replaced in the mid-1980s by the Sidon-born Saudi-Lebanese millionaire Rafic Hariri, in order to protect his business interests in the Sidon area. A small but disciplinated fighting force, predominately Sunni Muslim with some Shia Muslims and Christians, the NLA comprised some 500-1000 uniformed male and female fighters organized into conventional 'Commando', Infantry, Signals, and Military Police branches. It fielded a 'mechanized' corps provided with a single UR-416 armoured car seized from the Lebanese Forces in 1985, plus 40 all-terrain vehicles. The latter consisted mostly of Suzuki Jimny LJ20 1st generation off-road mini SUVs,Land-Rover series II-III, Peugeot 404, Toyota Land Cruiser (J40),Toyota Land Cruiser (J55), Toyota Land Cruiser (J70), GMC Sierra Custom K25/K30, and Datsun 720 pickup trucks fitted with heavy machine guns, recoilless rifles and anti-aircraft .
...
Wikipedia