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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Lebanon
Index
One of the most spectacular terrorist tactics in the 1980s was
a series of suicide vehicle bombings. The first occurred on April
18, 1983, when a pick-up truck driven by a suicide bomber exploded
in the driveway of the United States embassy in West Beirut. The
explosives detonated with a force equivalent to 2,000 pounds of
trinitrotoluene and destroyed the chancery building, killing 63
people, including 17 Americans, and wounding 100, about 40 of whom
were Americans. The Islamic Jihad Organization claimed
responsibility for the attack. Informed sources believed that the
Islamic Jihad Organization was a nom de guerre for Husayn Musawi's
Islamic Amal organization, while others believed that it was a
cover name for Hizaballah.
On October 23, 1983, Shia terrorists struck the United States
Marines compound and the French MNF headquarters in devastating,
near-simultaneous suicide bombing attacks. The attack on the United
States Marines compound took 241 lives and wounded over 100. The
bombing was carried out by a lone terrorist driving a stakebed
truck that penetrated the central lobby of the building and
exploded. United States Federal Bureau of Investigation experts
announced that the blast, with the force of over 12,000 pounds of
trinitrotoluene, was the largest non-nuclear explosion ever
detonated. The attack on the French contingent claimed fifty-eight
dead. On November 4, 1983, the suicide bombing tactic was used once
again. Near Tyre in southern Lebanon, an explosives-laden pickup
truck crashed through an Israeli guard post and detonated near an
IDF headquarters building, killing twenty-eight Israeli soldiers
and thirty-two Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. On September 20,
1984, a suicide vehicle bomber attacked the new United States
embassy building in East Beirut, killing eight and wounding dozens.
On March 10, 1985, Israel was struck again when a suicide bomber
drove a car packed with explosives into an IDF convoy at the border
crossing point, near the Israeli town of Metulla. Twelve Israelis
were killed and fourteen wounded. The initial spate of Shia suicide
bombings was so successful that it inspired other, secular
organizations--particularly the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party-
-to adopt the tactic in 1984 and 1985. As the frequency of suicide
attacks rose, however, their effectiveness and impact waned.
Lebanese groups abandoned the tactic and concentrated on a more
effective technique, hostage-taking.
Data as of December 1987
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