U.S. Marine Barracks Bombing, Beirut

On October 23, 1983, 241 American and 58 French service personnel were killed, and many more wounded, in two suicide bombings that destroyed the U.S. Marine barracks and a French paratroop barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The attack is widely thought to have hastened the end of American military involvement in Lebanon.

American Marines landed in Beirut during summer 1982 as part of a multinational peacekeeping force. They, along with British, French, and Italian military personnel, were sent during U.S.-brokered negotiations among Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. When the multinational troops arrived, both Israeli and Syrian forces occupied Lebanon, fighting on opposite sides of the civil war that pitted Lebanese militia groups against the Lebanese National Movement and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

On the Sunday morning of the attack, an explosive-laden vehicle drove into each military headquarters. The two explosions went off seconds apart, completely destroying their targets. For the U.S. military, the death toll was the largest single-day loss since the Vietnam War.

U.S. officials initially said that the bombing was planned by Iranian and Syrian intelligence services, but both countries denied the charges. Shortly thereafter, Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim group linked to Hezbollah, or “Party of God,” took responsibility for the massacre. This group also claimed responsibility for the April 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in West Beirut.

The 1983 Beirut bombings are said to have brought the American military presence in Lebanon to an end. After the collapse of Lebanese government authority in West Beirut in February 1984, the last U.S. troops left Lebanon, followed shortly by the remaining French, British, and Italian troops.