19831776 Club
Suicide bombers hit the Marine and French barracks in Beirut minutes apart; 299 troops dead
A yellow Mercedes truck cleared a fence and a guard shack before the driver detonated in the Marines' lobby.
Six months into the multinational peacekeeping deployment, the Marines stationed at Beirut International Airport were sleeping when a truck crashed through their barracks lobby before dawn on October 23, 1983. The bomb, estimated at 12,000 pounds of TNT, collapsed the four-story building and killed 241 American service members. Minutes later a second bomber struck the French paratroopers' barracks nearby, killing 58. A group calling itself Islamic Jihad claimed both attacks, saying the goal was to drive foreign forces out of Lebanon…
