Hezbollah Bombs US Marine Barracks in Beirut, Killing 241

A Hezbollah truck bomb destroys the US Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 service members in one of the deadliest attacks on Americans abroad, with Iran implicated as sponsor.

On October 23, 1983, two truck bombs detonated simultaneously at US and French military barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The attack on the US Marine barracks killed 241 American service members — the largest single-day death toll for the US military since the Vietnam War. Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant organization backed and financed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was widely blamed. President Reagan labeled Iran a "state sponsor of terror," imposing strict military sanctions. The attack marked one of the earliest and most devastating examples of Iran's use of proxy forces to strike American targets, a strategy it would continue to employ for the next four decades.