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Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I

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Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Marine Barracks Washington, 8th and I
Phone:
+1 202-433-4073

Address:
8th Street Southeast, Washington DC, DC 20003

On October 23, 1983, two truck bombs struck buildings in Beirut, Lebanon, housing American and French service members of the Multinational Force in Lebanon , a peacekeeping operation during the Lebanese Civil War. The attack killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French peacekeepers, 6 civilians and the 2 attackers. The first suicide bomber detonated a truck bomb at the building serving as a barracks for the 1st Battalion 8th Marines , killing 220 Marines, 18 sailors and 3 soldiers, making this incident the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II, the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Armed Forces since the first day of the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War and the deadliest terrorist attack on American citizens overseas. Another 128 Americans were wounded in the blast; 13 later died of their injuries, and they are numbered among the number who died. An elderly Lebanese man, a custodian/vendor who was known to work and sleep in his concession stand next to the building, was also killed in the first blast. The explosives used were later estimated to be equivalent to as much as 9,500 kg of TNT.Minutes later, a second suicide bomber struck the nine-storey Drakkar building, a few kilometers away, where the French contingent was stationed; 55 paratroopers from the 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment and three paratroopers of the 9th Parachute Chasseur Regiment were killed and 15 injured. It was the single worst French military loss since the end of the Algerian War. The wife and four children of a Lebanese janitor at the French building were also killed, and more than twenty other Lebanese civilians were injured.A group called Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombings and said that the aim was to force the MNF out of Lebanon. According to Caspar Weinberger, then United States Secretary of Defense, there is no knowledge of who did the bombing. While Israeli analyst Shimon Shapira points the finger at Hezbollah and Iran, they have all continued to deny any involvement in any of the bombings. Furthermore, there is no consensus Hezbollah was actually formed at the time of bombing.The attacks eventually led to the withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force from Lebanon, where they had been stationed since the withdrawal of the Palestine Liberation Organization following the 1982 Lebanon War. In 2004, it was reported in Western media that an alleged Iranian militant group called the Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign had erected a monument in a cemetery in Tehran to commemorate the 1983 bombings and its martyrs.
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