Bashir Gemayel exterminates 'The Tigers'

The National Liberal Party did not know what hit them on July 7, 1980 until it was too late.

The morning of that Monday was "the beginning of the end" for one of the most prominent Christian militias that fought during the early stages of the Lebanese civil war.

The move to eliminate the Tigers militia, the military wing of the National Liberal Party named after its founder and late President of the Republic Camille "Nimr" Chamoun, was carried out by Bashir Gemayal and his Phalangist militia.

Both militias were senior members of the Lebanese Forces War Council, and talks about "uniting the gun under one banner" was under discussion but never took place.

Prior to Gemayel's attack, Bashir's father Pierre Gemayal expressed his willingness to unit both militias. Pierre's statement was taken as a sign by Bashir to eradicate his contenders from the political as well as the military scene.

Bashir Gemayal made sure that his attack on the Tigers would be as swift as possible as hundreds foot soldiers simultaneously attacked the headquarters of Chamoun's militia, then commanded by his late son Dany, as well as other Tigers' offices in different areas of East Beirut and Kisrwan therefore neutralizing Chamoun's forces.

The most famous attack was carried out on one of the Tiger's hotbeds in Safra, a beach resort and the residence of Dany.

The attack was originally designated to start at 4:30 am but Bashir deferred the attack until Chamoun left the resort so he would not repeat the massacre of Ehden that lead to the death of Tony Franjieh, elder son of late Lebanese President Suleiman Franjieh, his wife and daughter, and thirty one of his partisans.

The Tigers were relaxing in Safra and sunbathing when 300 of the Phalangist transported in trucks and civilian automobiles stormed the compound and started to systematically exterminate the guards and all the others present.

One survivor of the massacre said that the "back stabbers" went in and started shooting everybody. "The Phalangists then rounded all the survivors, lined them up and executed many of my friends, I have a bullet in my back which I still get treatment for," he told Alternative.

Other areas in East Beirut were turned into a battlefield as the once allies, the Phalangists and the Tigers, started a series of street fighting that lead to more deaths and destruction in the residential areas.

Ashrafieh, the capital of both militias, was not spared of the fighting wrath as the two sides tried to control it.

Eventually, the Phalangists were able "to tame the Tigers" who would never recover from the sever blow handed to them. Dani Chamoun declared that he resigned from the party and would no longer have any thing to do with Lebanese politics.

At the end of the day the blood bath ended with the death of 100 people and 500 wounded along with the fall of 16 NLP quarters in Phalangist hands. This episode of violence would not be the end of alliance shifting massacres insuring that the war raged on.