The Popular Guard or Popular Guards – PG ( ar, الحرس الشعبي , ''Al-Harās al-Sha‘abī'') or Garde Populaire – GP in

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...

, was the military wing of the

Lebanese Communist Party The Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), abbr. PCL is a communist party in Lebanon. It was founded in 1924 by the Lebanese intellectual, writer and reporter Yusuf Yazbek and Fu'ad al-Shamali, a tobacco worker from Bikfaya. History Creation The ...

(LCP), which fought in the 1975–1977 phase of the Lebanese Civil War and subsequent conflicts. The LCP and its militia were members of the

Lebanese National Movement The Lebanese National Movement (LNM) ( ar, الحركة الوطنية اللبنانية, ''Al-Harakat al-Wataniyya al-Lubnaniyya'') or Mouvement National Libanais (MNL) in French, was a front of leftist, pan-Arabist and Syrian nationalist par ...

(LNM) and its successor, the

Lebanese National Resistance Front The Lebanese National Resistance Front – LNRF ( ar, جبهة المقاومة الوطنية اللبنانية, ''Jabhat al-Muqawama al-Wataniyya al-Lubnaniyya'') or Front National de la Résistance Libanaise (FNRL) in French, but best known ...

(LNRF).

Origins

The LCP's military wing was not only well-organized, but also one of the largest

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

and non-

sectarian Sectarianism is a political or cultural conflict between two groups which are often related to the form of government which they live under. Prejudice, discrimination, or hatred can arise in these conflicts, depending on the political status quo ...

militias in Lebanon. It was first founded unofficially during the

1958 civil war The 1958 Lebanon crisis (also known as the Lebanese Civil War of 1958) was a political crisis in Lebanon caused by political and religious tensions in the country that included a United States military intervention. The intervention lasted for aro ...

, fighting alongside the anti-government forces against the