1983 Beirut barracks bombing

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A mushroom cloud rises from the rubble of a U.S. barracks at Beirut International Airport after a suicide bomber drove a truck into its lobby and detonated it, collapsing the structure and killing 241 American servicemen.

The 1983 Beirut barracks bombing was a major incident during the Lebanese Civil War. Two truck bombs struck buildings in Beirut housing U.S. and French members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon, killing hundreds of soldiers. The October 23, 1983, blasts led to the withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force from Lebanon, where they had been stationed since the Israeli invasion in 1982, and it is considered one of the first instances of suicide bombing.

Contents

1 The bombing
2 Death toll
3 Response
4 Aftermath
5 Notes
6 External links

The bombing

On October 23, 1983, around 6:20 am, a yellow Mercedes-Benz delivery truck drove to Beirut International Airport, where the 1st Battalion 8th Marines, under the U.S. 2nd Marine Division of the United States Marines, had set up its local headquarters. The truck turned onto an access road leading to the Marines' compound and circled a parking lot. The driver then accelerated and crashed through a barbed wire fence around the parking lot, passed between two sentry posts, crashed through a gate and barreled into the lobby of the Marine headquarters. The Marine sentries at the gate had loaded pistols but were not able to stop the driver even though they shot at him. 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 many inside.

About 20 seconds later, an identical attack occurred against the barracks of the French Third Company of the Sixth French Parachute Infantry Regiment. Another suicide bomber drove his truck down a ramp into the building's underground parking garage and detonated his bomb, leveling the headquarters.

Death toll

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 the RAF hospital in Cyprus or to US and German hospitals in West Germany [link].

The death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel and 3 Army soldiers. Sixty 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. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AMH/XX/MidEast/Lebanon-1982-1984/DOD-Report/Beirut-8.html The wife and four children of a Lebanese janitor at the French building also were killed."French Troops Heard Blast at Marine Headquarters, Then . . ." The Associated Press, October 30, 1983.

This was the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima (2,500 in one 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 Beqaa Valley against Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions. President Reagan assembled his national security team and planned to target the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iranian Revolutionary Guards believed to be training Hezbollah fighters. But Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger aborted the mission, reportedly because of his concerns that it would harm U.S. relations with other Arab nations.

Besides a few shellings, there was no serious retaliation for the Beirut bombing from the Americans. In December 1983, U.S. aircraft attacked Syrian targets in Lebanon, but this was in response to Syrian missile attacks on planes, not the barracks bombing.

The Marines were moved offshore where they could not be targeted. On February 7, 1984, the order was given for the Marines to begin withdrawal from Lebanon. This was completed on February 26; the rest of the MNF was withdrawn by April.

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 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in April of that year. 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.http://news.billinge.com/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/23/newsid_2489000/2489117.stm

Along with the US Embassy bombing, the barracks bombing prompted the Inman Report, a review of the security of US facilities overseas for the US Department of State.

In May 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.http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/05/30/iran.barracks.bombing/

Notes

External links

[Lebanese civil war 1983 Full of Pictures and Information]

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