In the anime series Gundam Seed, ZAFT is a political, economic, and military alliance of PLANTS, colonies which house Coordinators. Specifically, ZAFT (for Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty) usually refers to the military side of ZAFT. ZAFT is well-equipped with Nazca-class and Laurasia-class warships in space, Lesseps-class land battleships and Vosgulov-class mobile suit carrier submarines . Its primary mobile suit for most of the war is the ZGMF-1017 GINN, which is not replaced until the final few weeks of the war with the ZGMF-600 GuAIZ (pronounced "Gates").Postwar, ZAFT's chaotic mix of mobile suits are replaced with the new ZGMF-1000 Zaku Warrior and ZGMF-1001 Zaku Phantom series.
ZAFT fights the Earth Alliance to a standstill in the Bloody Valentine War of Cosmic Era 70-71. During the late weeks of the war, ZAFT's "moderate faction" of leaders is wiped out in a bloody purge by military leader Patrick Zala, who blames all Naturals for the death of his wife in the Bloody Valentine Incident. Zala plans to wipe out all human life on Earth, eliminating, he believes, Naturals who are the cause of all warfare.
ZAFT's military is organized as a militia rather than the Earth Alliance's OMNI Enforcer military force, using positional titles as ranks rather than more traditional ones. In addition, command is assigned based on personal connections as skill - it is made clear at several points that a large part of why Athrun Zala is given command of the Le Creuset team on Earth is because of his father's position.
Gundam
Fictional governments
