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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Bill who wrote (881358)8/21/2015 3:39:08 PM
From: Metacomet  Respond to of 1575930
 
Reagan..

Oct. 23, 1983

Bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut
A suicide bomber detonated a truck full of explosives at a U.S. Marine barracks located at Beirut International Airport; 241 U.S. Marines were killed and more than 100 others wounded. They were part of a contingent of 1,800 Marines that had been sent to Lebanon as part of a multinational force to help separate the warring Lebanese factions. (Twice during the early 1980s the U.S. had deployed troops to Lebanon to deal with the fall-out from the 1982 Israeli invasion. In the first deployment, Marines helped oversee the peaceful withdrawal of the PLO from Beirut. In mid-September 1982 -- after the U.S. troops had left -- Israel's Lebanese allies massacred an estimated 800 unarmed Palestinian civilians remaining in refugee camps. Following this, 1,800 Marines had been ordered back into Lebanon.)

In his September 2001 FRONTLINE interview, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said the U.S. still lacks "actual knowledge of who did the bombing" of the Marine barracks. But it suspected Hezbollah, believed to be supported in part by Iran and Syria. Hezbollah denied its involvement.

The president assembled his national security team to devise a plan of military action. The planned target was the Sheik Abdullah barracks in Baalbek, Lebanon, which housed Iranian Revolutionary Guards believed to be training Hezbollah fighters. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger aborted the mission, reportedly because of his concerns that it would harm U.S. relations with other Arab nations. Instead, President Reagan ordered the battleship USS New Jersey, stationed off the coast of Lebanon, to the hills near Beirut. The move was seen as largely ineffective.

Four months after the Marine barracks bombing, U.S. Marines were ordered to start pulling out of Lebanon.




To: Bill who wrote (881358)8/21/2015 3:39:46 PM
From: Metacomet  Respond to of 1575930
 
Reagan..

April 18, 1983

Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut
A suicide bomber in a pickup truck loaded with explosives rammed into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Sixty-three people were killed, including 17 Americans, eight of whom were employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, including chief Middle East analyst Robert C. Ames and station chief Kenneth Haas.

Reagan administration officials said that the attack was carried out by Hezbollah operatives, a Lebanese militant Islamic group whose anti-U.S. sentiments were sparked in part by the revolution in Iran. The Hezbollah operatives who carried out the attack on the embassy reportedly were receiving financial and logistical support from both Iran and Syria. [For more on how and why Iran and Syria were helping to direct attacks on the U.S., see FRONTLINE's interviews with Robert Oakley and Robert C. McFarlane.]

The U.S. government took no military action in response to the embassy bombing, although, according to retired Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan, a covert military team entered Beirut in order to gather intelligence in preparation for retaliatory strikes.




To: Bill who wrote (881358)8/21/2015 3:40:55 PM
From: Metacomet  Respond to of 1575930
 
Reagan..

Dec. 12, 1983

Bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait
The American embassy in Kuwait was bombed in a series of attacks whose targets also included the French embassy, the control tower at the airport, the country's main oil refinery, and a residential area for employees of the American corporation Raytheon. Six people were killed, including a suicide truck bomber, and more than 80 others were injured. The suspects were thought to be members of Al Dawa, or "The Call," an Iranian-backed group and one of the principal Shiite groups operating against Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

The U.S. military took no action in retaliation. In Kuwait, 17 people were arrested and convicted for participating in the attacks. One of those convicted was Mustafa Youssef Badreddin, a cousin and brother-in-law of one of Hezbollah's senior officers, Imad Mughniyah. After a six-week trial in Kuwait, Badreddin was sentenced to death for his role in the bombings.

Over the following years, the arrest and imprisonment of the "Kuwait 17" (also known as the "Al Dawa 17"), became one of the most consistent demands of the kidnappers of Western hostages in Lebanon and plane hijackers.

Ironically, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the Iraqis unwittingly released the imprisoned Badreddin and the remaining members of the Kuwait 17. Press reports vary about Badreddin's current whereabouts.




To: Bill who wrote (881358)8/21/2015 3:41:09 PM
From: Metacomet  Respond to of 1575930
 
Reagan..

Sept. 20, 1984

Bombing of U.S. Embassy annex northeast of Beirut
In Aukar, northeast of Beirut, a truck bomb exploded outside the U.S. Embassy annex killing 24 people, two of whom were U.S. military personnel. According to the U.S. State Department's 1999 report on terrorist organizations, elements of Hezbollah are "known or suspected to have been involved" in the bombing.

The U.S. mounted no military response to the embassy annex bombing, but it did begin to explore covert operations in Lebanon. Investigative journalist Bob Woodward says that the CIA trained foreign intelligence agents to act as "hit teams" designed to destroy the terrorists' operations. Ambassador Robert Oakley says the U.S. merely attempted to set up a "protective unit," a Lebanese counterterrorist strike force.

President Reagan and the CIA called off covert operations when Lebanese intelligence operatives -- some allegedly trained by the U.S. -- set off a car bomb on March 8, 1985, in an attempted murder of Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the Shiite Muslim cleric who some believed to be the spiritual leader of Hezbollah. Over 80 people were killed in the attack near a Beirut mosque. Fadlallah survived.

Many blamed the CIA for the attack, saying it had directed the intelligence operatives to carry it out. Robert McFarlane, President Reagan's national security adviser, says that the operatives who carried out the attack on Fadlallah may have been trained by the U.S., but the individuals who carried it out were "rogue operative[s]," and the CIA in no way sanctioned or supported the attack.