forces the year before. Generally the PLA refrained from this kind of underground action, having been built up as something of a conventional military parade showpiece. Black September, Yom Kippur War, and Lebanese Civil War After its foundation, the PLA came to be used as political cover by its host governments, especially Syria. In course of the Black September of 1970, hastily repainted Syrian Army tanks under the command of the PLA were sent into Jordan to aid the Palestinian guerrillas against the Jordanian Armed Forces, probably with the ultimate aim to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy. Although the initial invasion was successful, with PLA forces capturing Irbid and declaring it a "liberated" city, the Jordanian military eventually managed to stall the attack in course of heavy fighting. After international pressure, and threats of intervention from both Israel and the United States, the combined PLA-Syrian forces were forced to turn back; an embarrassment which would contribute greatly to the overthrow of the government of Salah Jadid by Hafez al-Assad. The failure of the invasion has also attributed to the fact that the Syrian Air Force under al-Assad had refused to enter the fighting in the first place. PLA units saw action during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, fighting both at the Syrian and Egyptian fronts. From 1973, the PLA effectively became part of the Syrian Army. During the Lebanese Civil War, Syria likewise made extensive use of the PLA as a proxy force, including against the PLO (the PLA however proved unreliable when ordered to fight other Palestinians, and suffered from mass defections). In this conflict, it acted alongside the as-Sa'iqa faction of the PLO to support Syrian interests. Already deployed from 1975 in Lebanon, the PLA acted as cover for the Syrian Armed Forces during the start of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 1976, as invading Syrian soldiers were dressed in PLA uniforms. The PLA and as-Sa'iqa offered protection during the 1976 Lebanese presidential election, helping Élias Sarkis in getting elected as President of Lebanon. Overall, the PLA proved to be relatively ineffective in Lebanon. The PLA was largely destroyed as a fighting force during the 1982 Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon that started the 1982 Lebanon War. Its fighters in Lebanon left for Tunis when the PLO evacuated Beirut that year, in a US-sponsored cease fire agreement. The Egyptian PLA was also deployed in Lebanon in 1976,