1983 Beirut barracks bombing
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The 1983 Beirut barracks bombing was a major incident during the Lebanese Civil War. It occurred on October 23, 1983, in Beirut, Lebanon, where an international peacekeeping force had been set up after the Israeli invasion in 1982.
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The bombing
Around 6:20 AM on the morning of October 23 1983, a yellow Mercedes delivery truck drove to Beirut International Airport, where the United States Marines had their local headquarters. It turned onto an access road leading to the compound and circled a parking lot. The driver then accelerated and crashed through a barbed-wire fence in the compound parking lot, passed between two sentry posts, crashed through a gate, and barreled into the lobby of the Marine headquarters building. The Marine sentries at the gate were not able to stop the driver since they had no loaded weapons. According to one Marine, the driver was smiling as he sped past him.
The suicide bomber detonated his explosives, which were equivalent to 12,000 pounds (about 5,400kg) of TNT. The force of the explosion collapsed the four-story cinder-block building into rubble, crushing to death many inside.
About twenty seconds later, an identical attack occurred on the French Paratrooper barracks. A truck bomb drove down a ramp into the building's underground parking garage and exploded, levelling the headquarters.
Rescue efforts continued for days. While the rescuers were at times hindered by sniper fire, some lucky survivors were pulled from the rubble and airlifted to Cyprus or West Germany.
Death toll
The death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel, and 3 Army soldiers. 60 Americans were injured. In the attack on the French barracks, 58 paratroopers were killed, and 15 injured. In addition, the elderly Lebanese custodian of the Marines' building was killed in the first blast; the wife and four children of a Lebanese janitor at the French building were also killed.
This was the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima (2,500 in 1 day) of World War II. The attack remains the deadliest post-World War II attack on Americans overseas.
Response
President Ronald Reagan called the attack a "despicable act" and pledged to keep a military force in Lebanon. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said there would be no change in the U.S.'s Lebanon policy. On October 24 French President François Mitterrand visited the French bomb site. It was not an official visit, and he only stayed for a few hours, but he did declare: "We will stay." U.S. Vice President George Bush toured the marine bombing site on October 26 and said the U.S. "would not be cowed by terrorists".
In retaliation for the attacks, France launched an air strike in the Bekka Valley against Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions. President Reagan assembled his national security team to devise a plan of military action, and planned to target the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iranian Revolutionary Guards believed to be training Hezbollah fighters. However, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger aborted the mission, reportedly because of his concerns that it would harm U.S. relations with other Arab nations.
In December 1983, more than two dozen aircraft assigned to the U.S. Navy aircraft carriers USS Independence and USS John F. Kennedy were launched against targets selected by planners in Washington, D.C. They encountered heavy fire from Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries. Two attacking aircraft were shot down. The pilot of one, Lt. Mark Lange, was killed. His bombardier-navigator, Lt Robert Goodman, was captured by the Syrians (and subsquently freed a month later following intervention by the Rev. Jesse Jackson).
The Marines were moved offshore where they could not be targeted, and in February 1984 the Multination Force withdrew from Lebanon. Terrorists saw this as a two-fold victory for their cause, and their activity against Westerners (particularly Americans) increased, prompting various U.S. responses. This event is considered by many to be the beginning of what is now called the War on Terror.
Aftermath
The responsibility for the bombing is uncertain. Most (notably the U.S. government) believe the Hezbollah militant group, backed by Iran and Syria, was responsible for the bombings, as well as the April 1983 US Embassy bombing. Hezbollah, Iran and Syria, all staunch opponents of a Western presence in Lebanon, denied any involvement. Several Shia militant groups claimed responsibility for the attacks, and one, the Free Islamic Revolutionary Movement, identified the two suicide bombers as Abu Mazen, 26, and Abu Sijaan, 24.
Along with the April 1983 US Embassy bombing, this incident prompted the Inman Report, a review of the security of US facilities overseas for the US Department of State.
In May of 2003, US District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth declared that the Islamic Republic of Iran was responsible for the 1983 attack, on the grounds that Iran had originally founded Hezbollah and financed the group throughout the years.