Commanded by Sami Khoueiry, former head of the "Bashir Gemayel Brigade",[102] and headquartered at the upper Matn town of Jdeideh, the militia was directly dependent of the Phalange regional committee headed by Amin Gemayel and enjoyed a considerable autonomy from the KRF War Council in Beirut.[103] Raised in 1975-76 with material help from the Lebanese Army and trained by the then Colonel Ibrahim Tannous,[104] the Force 75 was financed by a small network of private business companies that included the ASU, colloquially known as the "Amin Special Unit", which excelled in extracting revenues from local traders in the form of paid services and protection rackets.[105] By December 1980, the Force 75 aligned 3,000 uniformed fighters[106] organized into several motorized light infantry companies on jeeps and light pickups equipped with Heavy machine-guns, recoilless rifles and AA autocannons. That same month however, the militia was forcibly disarmed by the newly constituted Lebanese Forces (LF) on Bashir's orders and in January 1981 its members were absorbed into the LF structure.