The Amal Movement
- Amal Movement (A M L: Afwâj al-Muqâwmat al-Lubnâniyya) which stands for Lebanese resistance legions.
Amal was founded in 1975 as the militia wing of the Movement of the Deprived(The Movement of the Deprived), a Shia political movement founded by Musa al-Sadr a year earlier. Sader was the highest Shiite spiritual leader of Lebanon, he was known to be a moderate and opposed inner fighting among the Lebanese, he disappeared in mysterious circumstances in 1978 while visiting Libya. Sader was succeded by Hussein el-Husseini who was followed by Nabih Berri in April 1980 after el-Husseini resigned from that post.
During the Lebanese War Amal fought against the Christian troops, then in Beirut it was involved against the 'mourabetun', then it faced the Socialist progressive party along with the Communists, it also faught against the Israelis.
During all these battles Amal managed to survive, specially thanks to the Syrians, who were Amal's best ally and vice versa, but when Amal faced Hizbullah, Amal was so often defeated by the superior military power of the Hizbullah guerrillas and Syrians so often saved Amal from very close defeats, also there was an inner uprising within its ranks.
In the summer of 1982 Husayn Al-Musawi, deputy head and official spokesman of Amal, broke with Berri. Musawi formed the Islamist 'Islamic Amal Movement' based in Baalbeck. It was aided by the Islamic Republic of Iran. By August 1983 Islamic Amal and Hezbollah were 'effectively becoming one under the Hezbollah label,' and by late 1984 Islamic Amal, along with 'all the known major extremist groups' in Lebanon, had been absorbed into Hezbollah.
Amal Accepted the Taef agreement and entered the Lebanese reconciliation. Amal was a strong supporter of Syria after 1990 and endorsed Syria's military presence in Lebanon. After Rafik Hariri's assassination in 2005, Amal opposed the Syrian withdrawal and did not take part in the cedar revolution. Since 1990, the party has been continuously represented in the parliament and the government, it's Leader Nabih Berri was elected speaker of parliament in 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2005. Currently Amal has 14 representatives in the 128-seat Lebanese parliament.
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