1983 Beirut barracks bombings - Wikipedia

On October 23, 1983, a suicide terrorist truck bomb kills 243 US personnel in Beirut. From the article:

"The 1983 Beirut barracks bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on October 23, 1983, in Beirut, Lebanon, during the Lebanese Civil War. Two truck bombs struck buildings housing Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF) peacekeepers, specifically against United States and French service members, killing 241 U.S. and 58 French peacekeepers, 6 civilians and the 2 suicide attackers. A group called Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombings and said that the attacks were to get the MNF out of Lebanon.[1]

According to Caspar Weinberger, United States Secretary of Defense at the time, there is no knowledge of who did the bombing.[2] While Israeli analyst Shimon Shapira points the finger at Hezbollah and Iran, they have all continued to deny any involvement in any of the bombings.[3] Furthermore, there is no consensus Hezbollah was actually formed at the time of bombing.[4] In 2004, it was reported in Western media that an alleged Iranian militant group called the Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign[5] had erected a monument in a cemetery in Tehran to commemorate the 1983 bombings and its "martyrs".[6][7]

Two suicide bombers detonated each of the truck bombs. In the attack on the building serving as a barracks for the 1st Battalion 8th Marines (Battalion Landing Team – BLT 1/8), the death toll was 220 Marines, 18 sailors and 3 soldiers, making this incident the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II, the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Armed Forces since the first day of the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War and the deadliest terrorist attack on American citizens overseas.[8] Another 128 Americans were wounded in the blast; 13 later died of their injuries, and they are numbered among the number who died.[9] An elderly Lebanese man, a custodian/vendor who was known to work and sleep in his concession stand next to the building, was also killed in the first blast.[10][11][12] The explosives used were later estimated to be equivalent to as much as 9,500 kg (21,000 pounds) of TNT.[13][14]

In the attack on the French barracks, the nine-story Drakkar building, 55 paratroopers from the 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment and three paratroopers of the 9th Parachute Chasseur Regiment were killed and 15 injured by a second truck bomb. This attack occurred just minutes after the attack on the American marines. It was the single worst French military loss since the end of the Algerian War.[15] The wife and four children of a Lebanese janitor at the French building were also killed, and more than twenty other Lebanese civilians were injured.[16]

The attacks eventually led to the withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force from Lebanon, where they had been stationed since the withdrawal of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) following the 1982 Lebanon War. In 2017, US Vice President Mike Pence called the bombings "the opening salvo in a war that we have waged ever since—the global war on terror".[17]"


COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen F. SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen MSgt Dale Johnson SPC Woody Bullard SSG Donald H "Don" Bates Lt Col Charlie Brown SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth SFC Shirley Whitfield PO1 William "Chip" Nagel SPC Margaret Higgins Maj Marty Hogan LTC Greg Henning Maj William W. 'Bill' Price SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT John " Mac " McConnell SPC Douglas Bolton Alan K. [~1305016:CPL Dave Hoover