Fawzi al-Qawuqji (19 January 1890 – 5 June 1977) was a Lebanese-born Arab nationalist who was most notably the field commander of the Arab Liberation Army during the Palestinian Civil War in 1948. al-Qawuqji was a veteran of numerous conflicts, including World War I, the Franco-Syrian War, Great Syrian Revolt, 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine, Anglo-Iraqi War, World War II, Palestinian Civil War, and Israeli War of Independence.
Biography[]
Fawzi al-Qawuqji was born on 19 January 1890 in Tripoli, Ottoman Empire to a family of Turkmen. al-Qawuqji fought for the Ottoman Army in World War I, but his ideas of Arab nationalism grew during the Interwar Years, fighting at the 1920 Battle of Maysalun against the Arab Kingdom of Syria, and Qawuqji took part in the 1925-1927 Great Syrian Revolt. Qawuqji later resigned a commission in the Iraqi Army to lead 50 guerrillas during the 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine against the United Kingdom and the Jewish paramilitary groups, but he later returend to Iraq to fight the British in the 1941 Anglo-Iraqi War. al-Qawuqji was seriously wounded in the war, and al-Qawuqji was made a Colonel in Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht, collaborating with them in their war against the Allied Powers. al-Qawuqji was captured by the Soviet Union in 1945 and released in 1947, and the next year he headed to Palestine to become the field commander of the Arab Liberation Army. He personally led the ALA guerrillas against the Israeli forces in the Palestinian Civil War and the Israeli War of Independence later that year, but his forces were destroyed in the Galilee in Operation Hiram, and he was forced to flee to Lebanon, where he died in 1977.