October 23, 1983 – A truck filled with explosives, driven by a Moslem suicide terrorist, crashed into the U.S. Marine barracks near the Beirut International Airport in Lebanon. The bomb killed 241 Marines and sailors and injured 80. Almost simultaneously, a similar incident occurred at French military headquarters, where 58 died and 15 were injured. Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh was suspected of involvement. They were part of a contingent of 1,800 Marines that had been sent to Lebanon as part of a multinational force to help separate the warring Lebanese factions. Twice during the early 1980s the U.S. had deployed troops to Lebanon to deal with the fall-out from the 1982 Israeli invasion. In the first deployment, Marines helped oversee the peaceful withdrawal of the PLO from Beirut. In mid-September 1982 — after the U.S. troops had left — Israel’s Lebanese allies massacred an estimated 800 unarmed Palestinian civilians remaining in refugee camps. Following this, 1,800 Marines had been ordered back into Lebanon. The president assembled his national security team to devise a plan of military action. The planned target was the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iranian Revolutionary Guards believed to be training Hezbollah fighters. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger aborted the mission, reportedly because of his concerns that it would harm U.S. relations with other Arab nations. Instead, President Reagan ordered the battleship USS New Jersey, stationed off the coast of Lebanon, to the hills near Beirut. The move was seen as largely ineffective. Four months after the Marine barracks bombing, U.S. Marines were ordered to start pulling out of Lebanon.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 13:43:43 +0000