Elie Hobeika (22 September 1956 – 24 January 2002) was the leader of the Lebanese Forces from 1985 to 1986, succeeding Foud Abou Nader and preceding Samir Geagea.
Biography[]
Elie Hobeika was born on 22 September 1956 in Kleiat, Lebanon to a family of Catholic Maronites. After much of his family and his fiancee were killed in the 1976 Damour massacre by the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hobeika led Christian militias in the Lebanese Civil War against Muslims, leading a July 1977 massacre of 80 people in Yarin and the struggles against fellow Christian groups. Hobeika developed close relations with the United States' CIA and Israel's Mossad, and he served as Bashir Gemayel's liaison with Israel when they invaded Lebanon in 1982 to flush out the PLO terrorists. On 16 September 1982 Hobeika was responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre, leaving 460-3,500 Muslim Palestinians dead. In 1985 he broke off relations with Israel as he favored Syria's occupation of the country, and the CIA abandoned him when he failed in his assassination of Hezbollah's spiritual leader Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, leaving him as an enemy of Hezbollah. In 1986 Samir Geagea displaced Hobeika as leader of the Lebanese Forces, but in the 1990s he served in political posts such as a member of parliament.
On 24 January 2002 Hobeika was killed at the age of 45 when a car bomb was detonated at his house in the Hazmiyeh suburb of Beirut, killing his two bodyguards and another person and wounding 3. Either Israeli or Syrian intelligence was responsible for his assassination, as he threatened to testify on Syria's role in the Sabra and Shatila massacres, while he was also accused of planning to reveal Israel's role in the attacks.