The Arab Liberation Army (جيش الإنقاذ العربي Jaysh al-Inqadh al-Arabi), also translated as Arab Salvation Army, was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji. It fought on the Arab side in the 1948 Palestine war and was set up by the Arab League as a counter to the Arab High Committee's Holy War Army, though in fact the League and Arab governments prevented thousands from joining either force.
At the meeting in Damascus on 5 February 1948 to organize Palestinian Field Commands, Northern Palestine including Samaria was allocated to Qawuqji's forces, although Samaria was de facto already under the control of Transjordan.
The target figure for recruitment was 10,000, but by mid-March 1948 the number of volunteers to have joined the Army reached around 6,000 and did not increase much beyond this figure. The actual number deployed might have been as low as 3,500, according to General Safwat. Its ranks included mainly Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinian Arabs and Druzes and a few hundreds of Iraqis, Transjordanians, Muslim Brothers from Egypt and Circassians. There were also a few Yugoslavs, Germans, Turks and British deserters.
Read more about Arab Liberation Army: Disposition and Control of Forces, Syria's Reasons For Developing The ALA, The Unit of The Minorities
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