Lebanon – 1983: U.S. Embassy and Marine Barracks Bombings
I. Bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut
The terror bombing of the American Embassy took place on 18 April 1983. A car bomb was detonated by a suicide bomber driving a van packed with nearly 2,000 pounds (910 kg.) of explosives at approximately 1:00 p.m. According to one account, the driver had driven past a lone sleeping Lebanese guard and came to a halt parked under the portico at the front of the building, at which point the vehicle exploded. In another account, the van broke through an outbuilding, crashed through the lobby door and exploded there. The blast collapsed the entire central façade of the horseshoe-shaped building, leaving a wreckage of balconies and offices in heaped tiers of rubble, and spewing masonry, metal and glass fragments in a wide swath. A total of 63 people were killed in the bombing: 32 Lebanese employees, 17 Americans, and 14 visitors and passers-by. Some 120 other individuals were wounded by the blast.
A pro-Iranian group calling itself the Islamic Jihad Organization took responsibility for the bombing in a telephone call to a news office immediately after the blast. The anonymous caller said, “This is part of the Iranian Revolution’s campaign against imperialist targets throughout the world. We shall keep striking at any crusader presence in Lebanon, including the international forces.”
Following the attack, the embassy was moved to a supposedly more secure location in East Beirut. However, on September 20, 1984, another car bomb exploded at this embassy annex, killing 20 Lebanese and 2 American soldiers.
II. Bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut
Just six months after the Embassy bombing, on 23 Oct 1983, a second more devastating attack took place. At around 06:22, a suicide bomber, an Iranian national named Ismail Ascari, drove his 19-ton truck onto an access road leading to the Marine barracks compound. He turned into and circled the parking lot, and then accelerated to crash through a 5 feet (1.5 m)-high wire barrier separating the parking lot from the building serving as barracks. Driving between two sentry posts and through an open vehicle gate in the perimeter chain-link fence, the driver crashed through a guard shack in front of the building and smashed into the lobby. He then detonated his explosives, later estimated to be equivalent to approximately 9,525 kilograms (21,000 lbs.) of TNT. The force of the explosion collapsed the four-story building into rubble, crushing to death more than 240 American servicemen.
Minutes later, a second suicide bomber struck the nine-story Drakkar building, a few kilometers away, where a French peacekeeping contingent was stationed. In this attack, 58 French paratroopers were killed and 15 injured. A group called Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for both bombings, saying that the aim was to push the multi-national force out of Lebanon.
Iran was listed by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terror in 1984 after determining that it was involved in the bombings. Iran’s complicity was also established in the many lawsuits brought by victims and families of victims.
III. Selected Litigation Against Iran
