Bombing of Lebanon Barracks -- October 23, 1983
On October 23, 1983, suicide bombers crashed a truck bearing more than 2,000 pounds of explosives through protective barricades at U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, Beirut. Since the attack took place early on a Sunday morning, it found most of the troops asleep in their beds. The explosion devastated the compound, collapsing the floors of the building on top of each other, killing 241 U.S. servicemen.
President Ronald Reagan had sent American troops to Lebanon earlier in 1983, hoping to stabilize a country ravaged by years of civil war. Their mission was to support a government friendly to U.S. interests and to Israel, and to help end the cycle of violence. The United States was supposed to play the part of an "honest broker" between competing interests.
Hezbollah, the militant Islamic group, claimed responsibility for the bombing. The ability of the United States to remain detached and play the role of honest broker became more difficult after the attack. American military ships shelled Lebanese positions, and the United States was drawn into supporting certain factions against others in the Lebanese civil war. The surviving Marines were withdrawn to U.S. vessels waiting offshore, and just two years after the bombing, President Reagan withdrew all U.S. military forces from the area at the request of the Lebanese government. The experience in Lebanon was devastating one for the President, and it altered his administration's policy in the Middle East; he never again sent ground troops into Lebanon or any other place in the Middle East.
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