Beiruit long ago [Archive] - Rat Pack International, the FIRST and ONLY Overseas Workers Forum

The Wild Rover

07-21-06, 09:30 AM

How many remember this. I was 18...

The April 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing was the April 18, 1983, suicide bombing of the United States Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. It was the deadliest attack on a US diplomatic mission up to that time, and is seen by some as marking the beginning of anti-US attacks by Islamist groups.

The bomb was detonated in a delivery van driven by a suicide bomber, carrying about 400 pounds (181 kg) of explosives. The van, believed stolen from the embassy a year before, gained access to the embassy compound and parked under the portico at the very front of the building, where it exploded. The blast collapsed the front section of the embassy and killed 63 people. Seventeen of these were Americans, and eight of them worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, including the CIA's Middle East director. Another one of the Americans was a United States Marine, MSG. More than a hundred others were wounded.

American troops had landed to try and restore order and central government authority to the war ravaged country. Many groups within Lebanon were opposed to the American presence but the militant group Hezbollah, under the code name "Islamic Jihad," is believed to have been responsible for the attacks.
Sounds like the shit is hitting the fan there again.
Check out the old embassy picture.

The Wild Rover

07-21-06, 09:35 AM

I am not trying to be political. But the events that are happening lately move me to tears, and I am just reminding everyone, that because of the saddness of events like these, we as a country have learned to provide better protection and facilities for our interests overseas. We have also learned that not everyone likes us, so please be dilligent, and try to be low key no-matter where you are working... And for the men and women that gave the ultimate sacrifice, may their souls rest in peace.
Semper Fidelis
Amen

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 survivors were pulled from the rubble and airlifted to the RAF hospital in Cyprus or to US and German hospitals in West Germany .

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. The wife and four children of a Lebanese janitor at the French building also were killed.

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.

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.

This photo taken from http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/image1.nsf/Lookup/2001101810128

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.