On Oct. 23, 1983, amid the Lebanese Civil War, two Islamic suicide bombers in separate trucks loaded with high explosives detonated their payloads outside buildings in Beirut housing U.S. and French service members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon, which included Italian and British peacekeepers. The explosion at the four-story building serving as barracks for Battalion Landing Team 1/8 of the U.S. 24th Marine Amphibious Unit collapsed, killing 220 Marines, 18 Navy sailors and three Army soldiers in what remains the largest single-day death toll for the Marines since the 1944 Battle of Iwo Jima. (See “‘The BLT Building Is Gone!’” by Richard Ernsberger, in the November 2016 Military History or online at HistoryNet.com.) Minutes later 58 French soldiers and six civilians were slain in the bombing of the French barracks building.
Last fall, amid renewed tensions in the region, American officials marked the 40th anniversary of the catastrophic bombings with a memorial service in Lebanon. Following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent offensive by Israel against Hamas positions in Gaza, many in the region fear fighting may erupt again in Lebanon, home to Hezbollah and others Islamic militant groups with ties to Iran, which supported the 1983
