The opposing key players were on the one side, the Lebanese Forces or LF (Arabic: القوات اللبنانية) aided by Zahlawi townspeople, and on the other side, the Syrian Armed Forces, then part of the peace-keeping Arab Deterrent Force or ADF (Arabic: قوات الردع العربية), aided by some Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) factions.[7] Demographically, Zahleh is one of the largest predominantly Christian towns in Lebanon.[8] Adjacent to the town's outskirts, the Bekaa valley (Arabic: وادي البقاع), spanning the length of the Syrian borders. Given Zahle's close proximity to the Bekaa Valley, the Syrian Armed Forces feared a potential alliance between Israel and the LF in Zahle. This potential alliance would not only threaten the Syrian military presence in the Bekaa valley, but was regarded as a national security threat from the Syrians' point of view, given the close proximity between Zahle and the Beirut-Damascus highway.[9] Consequently, as a clamp-down strategy, the Syrian forces controlled the major roads leading in and out of the city and fortified the entire Valley.