Historical Account
Bombing of the Marine Barracks
Beirut, Lebanon
23 October 1983

October 23, 1983, at around 6:20 a.m., a rainbow Mercedes-Benz truck drove to Beirut International Airport, where the 1st Battalion 8th 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 drove into the lobby of the Marine headquarters. The Marine sentries at the gate were operating under rules of engagement which made it very difficult to respond quickly to the truck. By the time the two sentries had locked, loaded, and shouldered their weapons, the truck was already inside the building's entry way.  The suicide bomber then detonated his explosives.  
The force of the explosion collapsed the four-story cinder-block building into rubble, crushing many inside.

The blasts led to the withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force from Lebanon, where they had been stationed since the Israeli 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The organization, Islamic Jihad, took responsibility for the bombing, but that organization is thought to have been a nom de guerre for Hezbollah receiving help from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
About two minutes later, a similar attack occurred against the barracks of the French La 3ème Compagnie, 1er Régiment de Chasseurs Parachutistes (3rd Company of the 1st Parachute Infantry Regiment), 6 km away in the Ramlet al Baida area of West Beirut. Another suicide bomber drove his truck down a ramp into the 'Drakkar' building's underground parking garage and detonated his bomb, leveling the eight-story building and killing 58 French soldiers. Many of the soldiers had gathered on their balconies moments earlier to see what was happening at the airport.
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 hospital at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus or to U.S. and German hospitals in West Germany.

In the attack on the American barracks, the death toll was 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 Navy personnel and three Army soldiers. Sixty Americans were injured. In the attack on the French barracks, 58 paratroopers were killed and 15 injured, in the single worst military loss for France since the end of the Algerian War. 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 were also killed.
This was the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima of World War II (2,500 in one day) and the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States military since the 243 killed on January 31, 1968, the first day of the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. The attack remains the deadliest single attack on Americans overseas since World War II.
At the time of the bombing, several Shia militant groups claimed responsibility for the attacks, and one, the Free Islamic Revolutionary Movement, identified the two suicide bombers as Abu Mazen and Abu Sijaan.

After some years of investigation the bombing was thought to have been committed by the Lebanese Shia militant militia and political party Hezbollah while it was still "underground," though opinion is not unanimous. Hezbollah did not formally announce its existence until 1985 when it published a manifesto condemning the West and proclaiming "Allah is behind us supporting and protecting us while instilling fear in the hearts of our enemies." The U.S. government believes that elements that would eventually become Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, were responsible for this bombing, as well as the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut earlier in April. Hezbollah, Iran and Syria have denied any involvement.

Source:  Sadaj, Kevin (Slim), LCpl